


Everybody Wants to be Someone's Here

by cherryvanilla



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Anxiety, Banter, Bisexuality, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Depression, F/M, Falling In Love, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Mixtape, Music, Panic Attacks, Pining, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, September 11 Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 17:43:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 32,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16665331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherryvanilla/pseuds/cherryvanilla
Summary: Casey tips his head back against the bed and turns to look at him, eyes a little hazy and smile lopsided.Dan’s breath catches in his chest as their gaze holds for too long a beat. He wants nothing more than to lean forward. Instead, he clears his throat and forces his gaze away, turning to stare at the ceiling.“This one of your mixes?” Casey murmurs. Dan totally forgot he had music on, R.E.M. streaming through his tape deck.“Yep.”Dan is hyper aware of every single place they’re touching. Which is basically shoulder to hip. He squeezes his eyes shut.(Or, snapshots of Dan Rydell’s life from 1983 to 2002, as told through 19 music-inspired vignettes.)





	1. Heartbreak Beat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kristophine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kristophine/gifts).



> This is a repost of my three stories from my sports night series, as I realized it made a lot more sense for them to be one story with three chapters as opposed to three separate fics. No new content here, just an attempt to satisfy my OCD self.
> 
> Here's a [link](https://8tracks.com/sometimesalways/everybody-wants-to-be-someone-s-here) to my 42 song sampling of Dan's mixtapes from 1983-1993, which inspired the first two chapters. And the [14 song scaled-down "story only" remix](a%20href=) of the same.
> 
> Thanks to Kristophine for beta and cheerleading and making me write sports night in 2018. Dan's voice was exactly what I hadn't realized I needed, while going through my own rough time. So thank you again.

_Your confusion_  
_My illusion_  
_Worn like a mask of self-hate_  
_Confronts and then dies_  


_____________________________

1\. **1983: Wishful Thinking**

Dan falls into the wrong crowd pretty quickly at school. He can’t really help the inevitability of it. He knows he’s smart (not as smart as Sam of course, since not many people are), has the ability to get good grades (even if he doesn’t apply himself or focus like David does), and is even good at sports (although Julia started out in Water Babies at three years old, and six years later she looks like a future champion). 

None of Dan’s own achievements seem to matter to his dad, though. At home he might as well be invisible. He’s not even the middle child, Sam is, but Sam is some kinda John Nash/Alan Turing intellect combo. It’s not like Dan blames him; he’s just a kid. This is all on his dad. Dan’s just rebellious enough now at fourteen, as a freshman in high school, to admit that. To sit on the bleachers after class with friends, blowing off baseball practice and smoking cigarettes instead. 

Cathy Miller’s there with them this time. Dan knows Tommy, Greg, and his sophomore friends Katie and Mikey are all wondering when he’s gonna finally make out with her. She’s willing and so is Dan. It’s just that since he started high school, he’s finding himself more interested in the captain of the football team than the girl he’s been crushing on since 8th grade, who’s suddenly interested in him back. 

Dan hasn’t told anyone, won’t tell anyone. The last thing he needs is for his family to find out. Then his father would _actually_ have a reason to hate him. 

_____________________________

2\. **1984: Boys Don’t Cry**

Dan started making mixtapes the year before, when he was supposed to be studying but couldn’t make himself give a fuck. He’s got a pretty good setup. Dual tape deck to record between tapes, a connector to transfer the stuff he still has on vinyl, even though he’s been buying cassettes with his allowance lot more lately. Sam always wrinkles up his nose and asks, “What are you ruining this time?” when he bounds into Dan’s room uninvited. They used to share, but their mom and dad thankfully put an end to that once Dan hit puberty. He seriously didn’t want to explain to his little bro why he was humping the bed in his sleep. 

Sam’s the one who hooked up the vinyl to cassette converter for him and told him the best tape deck to buy. He’s also the one who built Dan a computer for them both to use (probably so he would still have an excuse to come into Dan’s room) out of a kit he bought with money he saved from tutoring his classmates in math after school. Dan doesn’t know much about the Apple computer that got all that buzz after its Superbowl ad, but he’s pretty darn sure Sam’s creation is highly superior. 

Sam’s nose is always in a book. He’s a bonafide genius, is in all advanced classes and probably could’ve been in high school with Dan right now, except he didn’t want to be. Wants to just “enjoy being a kid.”

Dan doesn’t know any kids like Sam. 

“So what is it today?” Sam asks, sounding bored, but Dan knows it’s all a front. Sam loves it when Dan tells him about his favorite music. 

“Atmosphere by Joy Division. Gotta transfer it from the 12 inch.” 

“That’s new.” Sam examines the album cover. 

“Yeah, wanted it for a while. They put it out after Ian died.”

Dan starts up the recording, listen for that great sound of the needle gently catching against the vinyl. 

Sam’s biting his lip when Dan reclaims his position and looks back over, the two of them sitting on the floor, leaning back against the bed. “How’d he die?”

Dan looks away, staring at a soda stain on the carpet from the root beer he spilled last night. His brother might be a mathematical and science genius, but there are things in life that are beyond brains. That’s the shitty part. The reality. And he honestly doesn’t want to explain suicide and depression to his thirteen year old brother. Especially since Dan thinks he understands, understands what it could be like to be that unhappy. It freaks him out. His dad is always getting on him for how his music is too depressing. It’s one of the reasons he couldn’t get into New Order, even though it was the new project from the surviving Joy Division members. They were too upbeat, too happy, too _normal_. His dad would approve. 

“He uh, he killed himself, buddy. He was...sad. But like, really sad, not like when you get unhappy because Julia steals the remote from you or mom tells you you’ve gotta go to bed rather than read another chapter of Sagan.”

“Oh,” is all Sam says, but the word is heavy in the air around him. Dan wraps his arm around his brother’s shoulder and they listen together in silence. Dan tears up a little, but doesn’t let Sam see it, even though he knows Sam would never judge him.  
_____________________________

3\. **1985: Road to Nowhere**

The cigarettes turn into dope. His grades start slipping. He makes the basketball team and then loses his spot after missing too many practices because he was too stoned to drag his ass there after cutting 7th period to smoke up in the woods with Mikey. Mikey was a senior now, and importantly, had recently decided he’d be totally down with Dan sucking his cock. So Dan does it, and happily. Mikey only gives him handjobs in return, but Dan can’t be picky. Plus, it’s not like he hasn’t gotten laid by girls already. (Okay, so one girl--him and Cathy finally doing that deed--but it was good.) 

This is better, though. The heat of Mickey on his tongue, the way it feels to suck him down, trying to take all of him. 

It doesn’t matter that Dan's high more days than not lately, if it means he can get this. He isn’t home when his mom gets the call about his being cut from the team. He’s in Mikey’s room, sitting on his dick for the first time because Mikey’s parents are away and they’re both high enough for Dan to convince him that it isn’t “too gay” to do, that he’ll love it. Dan wasn’t sure if that was the truth for either of them when he first said it, but it sounded good and he really, really wanted to get fucked. 

It’s not perfect and Mikey’s nails are cutting into his hips but he’s floating enough to not care, gasping into Mikey’s skin for him to make Dan come. Mickey touches his dick and comes inside him before Dan finally comes himself, shaking and moaning. When Dan gets home he’s walking gingerly and he’s got his sunglasses on, eyes bloodshot, giving away his recreational activities. His dad rips them off his face as he steps into the living room and sneers down at him. 

“You’re high as a kite, Danny. And apparently no longer on the basketball team.”

“Oh,” Dan says, but he can’t muster up an apology, even as he looks at his mom, who seems like she might’ve been crying. He just doesn’t feel sorry at all. 

“You’re pathetic.”

“Jacob,” his mother says, but Jay holds up his hand. 

“No, he is, Jennifer. He’s a fuckup and should know it.”

Dan holds his head high, doesn't blink. “Yeah well, Dad, you’ve been treating me like I’ve disappointed you long before I ever really did, so I’m just sticking with the theme here.”

His dad’s eyes darken. Dan wouldn’t be surprised if he smacked him. It wouldn’t be the first time. But Dan also stands straighter than he ever has before, doesn’t back down, and after a moment his dad just says, “Get out of my damn sight.” The words, dripping with disgust, might as well be a slap. 

Dan can hear his parents arguing as he bounds up the stairs to his room. He slams his door, locking it. 

Sam’s there, sitting cross-legged on Dan’s bed and looking up at him with worried eyes. 

“What?” Dan shouts. “What do you _want_ , man?” 

Sam looks hurt, before he glares and pulls out something from behind his back. “Found this when I was looking for your baseball cards.”

He’s holding up Dan’s bowl. 

“Give me that.” He takes two long strides forward and snatches it out of Sam’s hand, hides it in his sock drawer with his back turned, blocking Sam’s view. 

“Is that why Mom and Dad are so upset? You’re doing drugs?”

Dan sighs, dropping his head. “It’s not — it’s just dope, dude. It’s nothing.”

“If it’s nothing, then why do they care?”

Dan turns around and crosses his arms over his chest. “Because I’m not gonna be the sports star he wants, not gonna get some fancy basketball scholarship and go to some Ivy League school on it. Probably going to flunk out of school at this rate.”

“Because you do drugs,” Sam concludes. 

Dan sighs again, rubs his hand over his face. “I don’t know what you want from me, Sammy. I don’t wanna play sports anyway.”

“You love sports. I hear you doing color commentary in your room at night.”

“So? I also love music. Maybe I’ll be a radio DJ.”

Sam snorts. They’re both quite for a moment. 

“Can I do it with you, if it’s no big deal?”

Dans eyes widen. “What? No!”

Sam glares at him again, harder this time. “You said it’s no big deal, Danny!” 

“That’s not -- it’s. Jeez, you’re my little brother, I’m not letting you get high.”

“I’m fourteen!”

“No, Sammy. Just. Stop. You’re a good kid okay? You’re -- the best. You don’t wanna be like me.”

“I think you’re pretty great,” Sam says quietly, and Dan nearly cries. 

“Yeah, well, you’re the only one, buddy.” He sits on the bed next to him, the box spring bouncing beneath his weight, and ruffles Sam’s hair. Then they look through Dan’s latest pack of Topps. Sammy was dying to find a Mark McGwire. 

Later, Dan will look back on that moment. He’ll tell himself he should’ve been firmer, should’ve knocked the thought completely out of Sam’s head. Should’ve tried harder to be the kind of brother Sam deserved, like David. 

Should’ve.  
_____________________________

4\. **1986: My Brain is Hangin’ Upside Down**

Contrary to popular opinion, Dan is not stoned for his own graduation. His old man is so surprised he managed to not only to graduate on time, but build up his GPA enough to actually get accepted into an Ivy League school after all that Dan isn’t about to rock that boat. And sure, Mr. Jacob Rydell isn’t all that impressed with Dan getting a writing scholarship rather than a full ride through sports (“Writing? Kinda weak, Danny”), but it’s still Dartmouth, it’s not a community college and most importantly, it’s out of this fucking state. 

So no, Dan isn’t stoned at his graduation but he absolutely is stoned after it. 

He and Mikey ended over that last summer, since Mikey was going off to college that fall and still couldn’t admit he was even into guys. Dan knows he’s bisexual but he’s still not out. He’s hooked up a bit senior year, but mostly with girls. Tonight, though, there’s a Class of ‘86 party at Greg’s house. Greg’s brother is home from college and Dan ends up getting the graduation blowjob of his life life in the master bathroom, and also trying coke for the first time.

Rob is everything Mikey wasn’t. Confident in his sexuality, enthusiastic to give Dan head, and even more enthusiastic to put his dick inside him after they spend hours kissing, the drugs making everything feel vital and frenetic and necessary. 

“Gotta use one of these,” Rob says, dripping with college-like wisdom and holding up a condom between his fingers. “That AIDS thing killed Rock Hudson last year, man.” 

“I’m not an idiot,” Dan says, even though he and Mikey had totally done it bare a few times. 

Rob just smirks like he knows something Dan isn’t telling him, and then they’re kissing again. It’s good, it’s great, and Dan can’t wait to have all the sex in college. He’s gonna go to class more, is actually excited about the journalism classes he picked and the one about radio broadcasting. He’s even taking a biochemistry class to make Sam happy, figures they could bond over it. They hadn’t done much of that lately. He’s gonna try to pull it together a little more. He’ll be out from under the thumb of his dad and away from his mom who just goes along with whatever her husband says anyway.

It’ll be good. It’ll be great.  
_____________________________

5\. **1987: Don’t Give Up**

He didn’t know. Dan doesn’t understand how he didn’t know. He should’ve known. Should’ve been able to easily read the signs. It would’ve been like looking in a mirror, after all. But he didn’t. Hell, he barely spent any time with Sam during his senior year, too concerned with pulling his grades up and making sure he got into an Ivy League school in a last ditch effort to impress his dad.

But instead of Dan knowing, Sam turns sixteen a week before Dan leaves for college; they have a big party, his parents beaming and all of Sam’s friends there. It's the fanfare that Dan didn’t get for his own graduation, but then again he never expected any, and he doesn’t begrudge it for Sam. Dan has friends who have a brother the same age as Sam and none of them get along. Dan figures that’s probably normal. It’s natural to clash, especially teenage boys. But Sam’s too funny, too kind, too energetic and likable. Dan can’t imagine disliking him, even when resentment might be a natural impulse. It just was never their dynamic. 

Sam’s the one that hugs him the night of his own party and tells Dan he’s proud of him, like _he’s_ the parent. A few days later Sam aces his written and road tests, because of course he does. The day Dan packs up his Volkswagen and leaves for Dartmouth is the day Sam gets his license. Dan’s still unpacking boxes in his super small dorm room when the phone call comes. The phone in his room isn’t even set up yet. This one is to the RA on his floor, the guy tracking him down and telling Dan that he’s got a call, that it sounds urgent. 

Dan rolls his eyes and follows, smiling to himself. Sam’s probably calling to say Dan not being there is throwing off the whole dynamic and that Julia is trying to commandeer Dan’s room.

It isn’t Sam. It’s his father. There’s no hello. There’s only his dad’s emotionless voice telling him, “You need to come home. Your brother is dead. Sam.”

He adds Sam’s name like an afterthought, like Dan wouldn’t need the clarification. And it isn’t until he’s shaking and crying, sliding down the wall to crumble on the floor of the dormitory hallway that he realizes he didn’t. He might not have seen it coming, but it all makes sense now. And Dan knows he did this. He caused this. 

He gets in the car and heads back home. He trashes his stash of dope before he goes.  
_____________________________

6a. **Winter-Spring 1988: Atmosphere**

The thing is, the dope would really help right now, but Dan doesn’t deserve ease or peace. He deserves to be raw with his grief, deserves to have it crawl up inside him until sometimes he feels like he might suffocate if he doesn’t gasp and cry and let it spill over and seep out. He started classes a week late in the fall and the school was understanding. Too understanding. That first semester his professors all looked at him like he might break down at any moment (and they weren’t necessarily off-base). Dan lost himself in music and sportscasts and tried not to feel like some of the light had gone out of the world because Sam was no longer in it. Steve Jobs had just introduced a new Apple processor and all Dan had thought at the news was: Sam probably still could’ve done it better. 

Going home for winter break is as awful as Dan expected, and while his dad hasn’t outright accused him of his youngest son’s death yet, it’s clearly on the tip of his tongue every time they speak. Over Hanukkah he comes close to saying it, brings up the drugs. Dan tells him he’s been sober for four months. The timing of that event is implied, but his dad still says, “Convenient,” with a sneer in his voice. Dan takes it in stride because, honestly, there’s no one who could hate Dan more than he already hates himself. 

It’s fine with Julia and Dave. No one is happy obviously, everyone’s aching, but they don’t treat him like some black sheep. Although Dan knows deep down Dave doesn’t really like him. They’re too different. His mom is quiet, sad. The streets on the block are all lit up for Christmas, yet nothing is shining in the Rydell world. 

Dan doesn’t stay the whole break. He can’t. He feels like he’s suffocating, especially since he keeps hovering outside the closed door of Sam’s room, unable to make himself go inside. He goes back to the dorms after New Year’s, eats ramen, lies on his bed and listens to music in his headphones even though there’s no one around. The sound is better that way. He discovered Tom Waits after Sam’s death and has been working his way through his discography. It’s hard to think of much else when you’re swallowed up by Tom’s smoky rasp. Sam would’ve liked it. There’s snow on the ground, it’s cold and the campus is empty, but Dan suddenly doesn’t feel so alone. 

One day in spring Dan is driving to meet up with some guy that he met in his journalism club, even though he has no interest in dating right now and just wants to get laid. But the guy, Adam, wants to go to a movie so that’s what they’re doing, Dan supposes. Adam wants to see Hairspray and Dan never really got into Waters and doesn’t think it’s really his thing, but hopefully they could at least make out. Dan hasn’t made out with anyone at all in -- well, in too long. 

He’s got the radio playing instead of one of his mixes. Atmosphere comes on, re-released for the Substance album. His chest locks up and he has to pull the car over to the shoulder just to get some air into his lungs. Suddenly he’s back in his bedroom in Connecticut, just him and Sam with their temples together, listening to the melancholy sadness of Ian Curtis’ voice as it washes over them. Dan doesn’t realize he’s crying until he’s sobbing and can barely breathe, panic seizing hard in his chest. 

He starts the car up once he calms down, finds a pay phone and cancels his date. Then he goes to Tower to buy Substance and lies down in his dorm room, listening to it on repeat.  
_____________________________

6b. **Summer 1988: The Ledge**

Dan manages to score an internship at a sports radio show in LA over the summer. He still isn’t quite sure how. Maybe his professor is just taking pity on him and giving him shining recommendations so Dan has something constructive to do with his time. Dan’s been enthusiastic in class, though, actually interested in this. Besides, he could deal with special treatment if it meant he could escape to someplace completely different. The appeal of California is overwhelming to a townie like Dan. 

The job isn’t much, a glorified gofer position, but he meets some cool people and by the end of the first week he’s hanging out with some of the other interns after work. He finds himself getting into New Order when he ends up in a West Hollywood club that’s blasting “Blue Monday 88.” The beats are good and although it’s not his favorite track he ends up revisiting their older stuff, particularly “Ceremony,” originally a Joy Division song. 

Dan can recognize he’s not the same. He’s not the fourteen year old who rebelled against a band just because his dad might approve of them more. Dan is well aware how foolish, how _childish_ that notion was. He realizes now that it was never about the music, or any other innocuous topic. It was about tearing Dan down. His dad would’ve still found a reason to hate New Order if Dan had liked them. Maybe they’d have been “too gay”.

Dan definitely doesn’t mind being “too gay” in the back room of that WeHo club, that’s for sure, and he scores a mean blowjob while Bernard Sumner repeatedly asks _how does it feel_ over the club’s sound system. 

It feels pretty damn good, actually. 

Aside from his newfound ability to easily hook up with guys in public, Dan’s favorite part of the LA gig is being able to hang out in the writers room and even turn out some test copy. His favorite of the writers is Casey McCall, who’s smart, funny and can command a room without even realizing he’s doing it. Plus, he’s stupidly attractive. Like GQ attractive, despite being far too pasty for someone who’s already been out in LA for a year. Casey should be on the air, not stuck writing for self-entitled douches. He’s only four years older than Dan, but he seems larger than life and wise beyond his years, while Dan still feels clumsy and out-of-place in spite of his ability to turn on confidence and become a different person if the situation calls for it. 

More importantly, Casey actually sees him. He doesn’t act like Dan’s just another faceless, nameless summer intern. Dan doesn’t feel the need to “turn it on” as much around Casey. He can be more himself, even if he still isn’t completely sure who that person is when he isn’t stoned 24/7. Casey makes Dan laugh and seems delighted when Dan returns the favor, matching him wit for dry wit. Dan’s not sure he’s ever felt a connection like this before, and he finds himself jerking off to Casey’s dumb face and gorgeous hands nearly every night in his shitty apartment. 

So of course he finds out Casey’s getting married in a few months. Because why would Dan be able to get something that good. After learning the news (Casey’s face beaming as he introduces his fiancée Lisa), Dan goes back to his apartment alone, gets drunk and chain smokes. He starts feeling itchy in his own skin, but he doesn’t try to score any dope even though this is LA and it would be all too easy. He has a quiet breakdown on the one year anniversary of Sam’s death and speaks to his family, but he still doesn’t buy drugs and he still doesn’t tell Casey about Sam, even though he wants to. 

He’s never actually _wanted_ to tell someone before. Normally, he spends most of his time trying to make sure no one knows. It’s different with Casey. Everything’s different with Casey. And Casey’s getting married.

He leaves the internship with a tight smile in Casey’s direction, a futile attempt at guarding his feelings. But Casey claps Dan on the shoulder, the touch warm and inviting, and presses his phone number into Dan’s palm.

“You should try and come back next year,” Casey says, his voice sincere and his smile too beautiful to do anything but get lost in. 

(Dan is hopelessly, irrevocably lost.)  


He nods at Casey, puts the slip of paper into his wallet, and knows he’s just enough of a masochist that he will. 

_____________________________

7\. **1989: Love Song**

Some days, when it isn’t so hard, when it actually takes him three hours of being awake to even think about his little brother, Dan hates himself with a fiery passion and wishes it had been him in that car instead. 

So he tries to lose himself in creativity. He writes more, writes sports copy, writes the way Casey would want him to. They talk on the phone here and there and it’s hard to remember Casey’s a married man now while Dan’s nearly twenty and still just a dumb fuckup. 

He also makes more mixes. Makes one with Casey vaguely (okay, more than vaguely) in mind and listens to it on repeat. He sleeps with guys, sleeps with girls, but never falls for anyone and has no room for anything else in his heart except the thought of being in LA again this summer. 

He gets the internship and Casey’s possibly even more gorgeous than he was last year. _Must be married life_ , Dan thinks bitterly. 

He only met Lisa the one time. She didn’t seem to like him much, despite the fact that Dan had turned on the charm. Or, perhaps, because of that. 

The internship is good, rewarding. Dan’s learning a lot about the way the industry works and what it takes to be in this kind of career. Being near Casey is even better, if maddening. It’s great to see their assistant producer Dana again too, even if she does get Dan stressed out from her own high energy. He doesn’t miss the way Casey smiles at her. It’s softer than the way he smiles at Dan, years of history that Dan can’t even hope to contend with. He tells himself jealousy is an ugly quality, but there are many parts of Dan that could be characterized that way. 

Casey calls him “Danny” even though no one else there does. He has since the first week they met. Dan had nearly corrected him, a quiet but firm “Actually, it’s Dan,” but something held him back. He still isn’t sure what, only that when Casey said his nickname it didn’t remind him of his dad. Dan’s family mostly used the name as a way to chastise (even Sam, sometimes). On Casey’s tongue, however, the name sounds foreign to his ears. Dan could drown in those two syllables and never come up. 

He and Casey work on one of the scripts together toward the end of his internship and it’s like lightning in a bottle. 

“Wow. We need to make this happen. You and me, Danny,” Casey says, sounding a little breathless. 

Dan would love to make him and Casey _happen_. Would kill to hear him sound like that while on his back with Dan's head in his lap, but he’s no homewrecker. He files the thought away for tonight in his bed and just grins at Casey like his thoughts don’t verge on NC-17 the majority of the time they’re together. 

“Just tell me when and where and I’ll be there.”

Casey laughs and claps his hand on Dan’s shoulder, lingering a little as he squeezes. He’s always finding excuses to touch Dan. It would torment a lesser man, but Dan’s already drowning in enough torment of his own creation and doesn't have room for any more. 

“Just hurry up and graduate, rookie.” Casey says the words with such affection that Dan's heart feels like it might bust through his rib cage. 

That night, instead of jerking off, he pulls out the mix he’d been tinkering with in the months leading up to the internship. He listens to it again and closes his eyes, decision made. 

On his last day, the tape is burning a hole in Dan’s pocket. He nearly chickens out, but then Casey pulls him into a hug, their first real embrace that isn’t a one armed bro thing. So Dan takes a breath and reaches into his pocket. He presses the hard plastic into Casey’s palm, recalling the way Casey did the same as he gave Dan his number last summer, his heart racing. 

Dan tells himself Casey won’t know that most of the songs are specifically for him, or that Dan wasted two cassette tape sleeves printing the tracklist because his hand was shaking so hard, the words looking like chicken scratch whereas Casey’s handwriting was always so perfect, every I dotted and T crossed. He won’t know that Dan is of the mind that gifting a mix to someone is the ultimate late-80s romantic gesture and that he’s never had any desire to do that for anyone prior to this.

“Because you could use some new tunes, Fleetwood Mac,” is what he says as their fingers brush. The touch lights Dan up from the inside out in a way that he hasn’t felt in forever, maybe never truly has.

“Hey now, Fleetwood Mac is still relevant,” Casey replies, all dry wit, brilliant white teeth, and stupidly crooked smile.

“So is soccer, apparently; that doesn’t make it good, my young friend.”

Casey throws his head back as he laughs, his smile radiant, and Dan knows in that moment that he never wants to be out of Casey McCall’s orbit. 

He leaves LA with his mind set on finding his way back to Casey, pulling himself together as much as it takes and being -- better. Sam’s bright light may be gone too soon, but Dan thinks some light shines around Casey and he’s not ready to let that go, unrequited or not. He’ll be alongside Casey McCall, where he belongs, the two of them finding a way to make that chemistry happen again. 

Dan’s still pretty broken, and he knows he’ll never be whole again. But for the first time since graduating high school, he’s actually looking forward to the future and what it might hold.

He thinks maybe, somewhere, his little brother is proud.


	2. The World is Collapsing Around Our Ears

_I’m needing all that you can give me_  
_All the things that you do so well_  
_Words are healing_  
_Sweet anticipation_  
_Making spells_  
_As the shadows close in_  
_Fall across all our yesterdays_  
________________________

8a. **Winter 1990: The Policy of Truth**

Dan celebrates the start of the new decade by getting himself a boyfriend. It isn’t the person he wants, but Dan figures pining over a married man who’s 3,000 miles away is the height of self-destructive tendencies, even by his standards. 

So Dan dates Richard. Richard is in the MBA program. He doesn’t have blond hair or blue eyes and he can’t recite classic sports calls from memory. 

Meanwhile, Dan and Casey speak on the phone multiple times a week. Casey’s moved up to a broadcasting role at the station. 

“TV is really where it’s at, though. That’s the future, Danny.”

Dan laughs into the receiver. “You sound straight out of the 50s, grandpa. ‘That picture tube is going to go places, my boy.’”

Casey snorts. “Sorry we can't all be as young and hip and _youthful_ as you are.”

“You left out attractive.”

“Did I? An oversight.”

Dan flushes. He knows they’re just bantering, it’s what they _do_. However, it’s hard to not to lose himself in the playful, affectionate tone of Casey’s voice. 

_I have a boyfriend_ , Dan reminds himself. 

A boyfriend Casey doesn’t even know about. Here’s so much Casey just doesn’t know...

“Casey—“

“Hey, Danny—“

They speak at the same time and Dan laughs, rueful. “You go first.”

“Uh. So I’ve got some news?”

Dan’s heart seizes in his chest—

“Lisa’s pregnant. I’m gonna be a father!”

—and abruptly drops into his stomach. 

He hates that his first thought isn’t elation on Casey’s behalf. 

“Wow,” Dan replies weakly, clearing his bone dry throat. “Wow, Case!” He says with more conviction. “That’s — that’s so great, man.”

Unfortunately, Dan is a terrible actor at times. 

“You sure about that, buddy?” Casey says, words dripping with bemusement. 

Dan is really, really close to having a panic attack, can feel it building. 

“Of course, man. I’m just surprised. You didn’t even mention you guys were trying.”

Probably because they didn’t talk about things like that. Casey was practically a pearl clutcher. Still, it’s the kind of thing he’d thought Casey would at least mention, since it was less about sex and more about procreation. 

“We weren’t — I mean, we’d talked about _eventually_ , but it just kinda — happened. I’m happy though, it might be just what we—“

Casey cuts himself off, and Dan has a terrible feeling about that. 

“Casey, man, are you and Lisa having problems?”

“Hmm?” He sounds distracted. “No, uh. I mean, yeah things aren’t easy breezy. I’m working more hours now that I’m on the air. Dana too, since she’s been promoted to producer. Lise just...well, it is what it is.”

There is a lot for Dan to unpack in those words. Instead, he focuses on the easiest thing. “Did you honestly just say _easy breezy_?”

“I... plead the fifth.”

Dan laughs, head tipped back to the ceiling. “You’re already a cheesy dad and your kid isn’t even born yet.” 

“Lies. I am very cool. Radical, even.”

“Saying radical makes you inherently uncool, my young friend. It's the 90s now.”

“I’m well aware. Dana says I need to start wearing more flannel.” 

“She still dating that guy with the mullet?”

“I think she dumped him on New Year’s.” Casey’s voice is fond like it always is when they bring up Dana. Dan grits his teeth. 

“Harsh,” Dan replies. He hears a car honking on Casey’s end of the line and narrows his eyes. “Where are you calling me from?”

“Oh, uh. Still at the studio.” 

Dan raises his eyebrows and looks at the clock. It’s 11:30 in his timezone and they’ve already been on the phone for ninety minutes. 

“Casey, what the hell?”

“It’s, uh, it’s your late class night.” He can practically hear Casey scratching at the back of his neck. “And Lisa isn’t too thrilled when we talk for so long after I get home from work, so...”

“Soooo you hide out in your office to call me like some mistress?” Dan finishes, suddenly angry. He’s not sure if it’s at Casey or Lisa or them both. 

“Woah, Danny, that’s —“

“You ever stop to think this might be why you’re having problems, dude? I mean, late nights at the office, secret phone calls. I would not be surprised if she started getting ideas.”

“I wouldn’t cheat on her,” Casey says, tiredly, like the mantra of a man who’s had to say just that multiple times. 

Jesus. 

“I know,” Dan says softly. _I know_ , he thinks, _even if I sometimes wish you would because I’m a horrible piece of shit and want you so fucking badly I can hardly breathe sometimes._

“Yeah, So, anyway. I’m having a kid.”

“Your wife is having a kid,” Dan corrects. Right, that’s how this whole thing started. “When is she due?” 

“August.”

Of course. Of course it would be August. 

“My brother’s birthday is in August,” Dan says, the words like sandpaper in his throat. 

“Oh yeah? How old is he gonna be?”

Dan swallows hard, eyes squeezed shut. “He would’ve been nineteen this year.”

“Would’ve — oh. Oh, Danny, I’m—“

The panic is back, making his chest feel like it’s caving in. “He was killed in a motor vehicle accident the day he got his license. It was the same day I left for college. He was drunk and high. Some bad habits he picked up from me, but I — didn’t know that. Didn’t know—“

Dan is rambling, he can feel it. His mind is going too fast, the words tumbling out of his mouth beyond his control. 

“Dan—Danny it’s okay—“

“I gotta. Casey, I gotta go.”

“Wait—“

Dan hangs up and gives himself over the the panic, the bile steadily rising up in his throat. He makes it to the bathroom in time to throw up the contents of his stomach. Resting his head on the porcelain tile, he gives himself over to the tears.

Dan doesn’t tell people. He especially doesn't tell them how he’s the one to blame.

He wanted to tell Casey, he really did, but that didn’t make actually doing it any easier. 

Dan feels like a goddamn fool as he heads back to his room. 

There’s a light blinking on his answering machine. 

“Hey... Danny... “ Casey sounds as wrecked as Dan feels. “I wanted to say thank you. Thank you for telling me that. Obviously it wasn’t easy. And I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times before, but that you shouldn’t blame yourself, okay? You can’t...control something like that. Anyway, uh. If you’d ever like to tell me about your brother sometime, I’d love to hear about him. Take care, buddy.”

Dan’s crying all over again by the end of the message. The thing is, no one has ever told him that. No one has ever tried to make Dan believe it wasn’t his fault. 

And while Dan still can’t believe Casey’s words, they feel… nice. 

He doesn’t talk to Casey again for a few days, needing the space. When he does finally call, he doesn’t say hello. He says, “His name is Sam, and he’s kinda brilliant.” 

There’s a pause before Casey says, with quiet sympathy, “Tell me more.” 

Dan does.  
________________________

8b. **Spring-Summer 1990: In a Different Place**

Dan’s still dating Richard when he gets ready to leave for LA. It was easy enough to score the internship again this year, now that Casey has more pull. He managed to get Dan a writing position for the summer that not only pays, but will also give course credit. 

“You’re going to be gone for months?” Richard asks from where he’s half naked on Dan’s bed. 

“Yeah. I’ve done it a few times,” Dan replies, kissing along his shoulder and up to his neck. 

“I see.”

Dan groans and pulls back. “What?”

Richard expression is pinched. “I just find it funny you’re throwing this at me the week before the end of the semester, when you’ve obviously known for longer.”

Dan stares at him blankly. “I’m sorry? Does it matter? You’re going home to Florida for the summer anyway.”

Richard flushes. “Actually, uh, I was gonna--well, I was gonna ask you if you wanted to go backpacking across Europe. It was gonna be a surprise, once your grades came in.”

Dans mouth drops open. Richard is a trust fund baby. It isn’t something they talk about. He tries to pay for Dan and Dan always declines. This, though? 

“Europe,” Dan repeats flatly. 

Richard sighs. “There it is.”

Dans jaw tightens. “There what is?”

“The Dan Rydell tormented face. Tell me, exactly, what is so fucking bad about going on vacation?”

“I don’t need a handout, Richard. And seriously, now who’s throwing shit at whom?” ”

Richard laughs, a hollow sound. “Handout, right. Because I can’t do something nice for my boyfriend whom I care about. Because I can’t want to surprise him and make him, god forbid, happy.”

“I wasn’t aware you thought we were that serious.” Dan is staring at a spot along the wall as he says it, his voice carefully emotionless. 

“Wow. Wow, you really are an asshole.”

“No, if I were an asshole I’d tell you it’s a boyfriend _about whom you care_.”

Richard scoffs. He sees him get up out of his periphery, and hears the rustling of fabric as Richard puts his shirt on. 

“Here’s a word of advice, Dan. Maybe don’t give someone the chance to fall in love with you when it’s pretty fucking obvious you’re emotionally unavailable.”

Dan’s whole body tenses but forces himself to look toward the door. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

As if on cue, his phone rings. 

Richard laughs bitterly. “Better not keep Mr. Los Angeles waiting now. I’ll see you around, Dan.”

He slams the door as he leaves. 

Dan collapses back against the pillows. He reaches for the phone before the machine gets it. 

“Hello?” Dan answers, the word a pitiful moan. 

“Well you sound great, sunshine,” comes Casey’s amused voice. “Did I wake you? Are you hungover?”

It’s 10am on Sunday, 7am Casey’s time. Lisa is usually at her prenatal yoga class. Dan was supposed to be engaging in some morning sex right now. 

“I think I was just dumped,” he says unthinkingly, then freezes.

There’s silence on the other end of the line. “Oh. I — didn’t know you were seeing anyone?”

Dan drags his hand through his sleep rumpled hair. “Uh, yeah. Since like, late January?”

“Jan—that’s four months, Danny!”

“Very good, Casey, now recite me the alphabet song.”

He can hear the eye roll as clear as day. “You ass. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“I don’t know? We don’t seem to talk about that stuff much.”

Though that wasn’t necessarily true anymore. After Dan spilled the Sam beans they’d begun talking more about personal things . Casey isn’t a big feelings guy, but Casey’s started talking about Lisa a little. About the things that frustrate him, excite him. About his fears as a dad and his doubts as a husband. It’s nothing too deep, but it’s happening. 

“We can,” Casey offers, voice so earnest it nearly breaks Dan’s heart. 

Dan opens his mouth, the words on the tip of his tongue. He wonders what’s going to happen if he gives Casey this last piece of himself, then makes the decision. 

“His name is Richard. He’s in the MBA program at Dartmouth and he’s apparently in love with me and wanted to go backpacking around Europe together this summer.”

There. Like a band-aid, right off. Dan’s not even panicking. Much. 

“Oh,” Casey says quietly. 

Dan doesn’t respond, can’t respond. 

“So, uh, you’re—“

He rolls his eyes. “The word you’re looking for is bisexual, Archie.”

“I resent that comparison,” Casey replies, but Dan can tell he’s smiling. Dan pictures him: that crooked smile he knows, like Casey wants to say something and won’t.

“As you should. Are the 90s blowing your mind yet, old man?”

“Little bit,” Casey says, and if he sounds a little stunned, he also sounds impressed. “So, uh, not exactly sure where your problem comes in? You just told me someone’s in love with you and wants to take you on an amazing vacation.”

 _Oh Casey, Casey, Casey, if you only knew,_ Dan thinks, before worrying his lip. Honestly, he still hasn’t processed the fact that Richard was apparently in love with him. No one’s ever been in love with him before. Dan isn’t sure why someone ever would be. 

“I’ve got the internship, man. Plus it wasn’t —that serious for me.”

“You a player, Danny?”

Dan groans but he’s smiling helplessly. “Please don’t say player.”

“A Casanova, then?”

“Dear lord.”

“The gangster of love? Maurice?”

“Jesus Christ, and here I thought I was updating your music tastes.”

Casey laughs. “You are. I listen to that mix all the time in the car.”

Dans heart stops. “You do?” Casey never mentioned it again and Dan couldn’t make himself vulnerable enough to ask if he’d a) listened to it, b) liked it. 

“Yep! Lisa wonders when I got so cool.”

Dan swallows hard. “I’m sure you’re taking all the credit.”

“Naturally.”

Dan smiles again, but it doesn’t feel quite the same. “Anyway, I don’t want someone paying for a vacation for me. I’d feel like I have to be forever in their debt or something. It’s for the best.”

“If you’re sure.”

Dan sighs. “I am.”

They’re both quiet for a minute. 

“Hey, we okay?”

Dan laughs. “Shouldn’t I be asking you that?”

“Shut up, Danny,” Casey says, the words sharper than Dan was expecting. “You know I’d never — care about something like that.”

 _That’s sort of the problem,_ Dan thinks. 

“I know,” is what he says aloud. “Thanks, Casey.”  
________________________

The internship that year is different in a lot of ways. For one, Casey takes him under his wing like it’s his job, which it definitely isn’t. Shows Dan around, shows him _off_ , like Dan’s something special. They write together, they watch game footage, they spend late nights in Casey’s office with pizza and soda and beer that Dan still isn’t even legal to drink without his fake ID for a few months yet. Dana joins them sometimes, looking between the two of them with idle curiosity. Dan tries not to flush. He and Dana are too alike, when it comes to Casey. Dan really hopes she can’t tell. 

Then there’s the fact that he sees Lisa a lot more. A very pregnant Lisa. He has dinner at the McCalls’ house, swims in their pool. Lisa eyes him like a hawk and Dan feels prickly under his skin, like both important women in Casey’s life can see right through him, down to the deepest recesses of his heart. 

Casey makes him go out one night in early August to a club, just the two of them. 

“A last hurrah before fatherhood!” Casey exclaims as they climb into a cab. 

“Pretty sure you’ll be going to clubs again, Case.”

“Mmm, maybe not this one. This is for you, my friend.”

Dan tenses. His suspicions are confirmed when he gives the driver the name and location. 

“Casey,” Dan asks, tightly. “What are you doing?”

“You’re gonna show me how the other half lives!”

Casey’s talking way too loudly. They’ve already had a few shots of the Jägermeister in his office that Casey received last Christmas but had yet to open.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea.” Dan is going to remain calm if it kills him. 

“It’s a great idea, Danny.” Casey replies solemnly as he squeezes Dan’s shoulder. “The best idea. It’s the 90s! Broaden my horizons!”

“I’m so sorry you have to endure this,” Dan tells the driver gravely.

“Buddy, this is L.A.”

Dan laughs to himself. Yeah. 

They get to the gay club in WeHo. It isn’t one Dan’s actually frequented before. Casey is ridiculous, eyes wide like he’s surprised places like this exist. 

Dan steers him through the dance floor and to the bar. “Dear God, don’t they have queer people in the midwest, Farmer Ted?”

“Not this… glittery.”

Dan laughs and waves down the bartender. “Let’s just drink.”

And drink they do. Dan doesn’t let Casey out of his sight, hand firm on the center of his back. He’s getting a few looks. He could totally score tonight. But there’s no way he’s abandoning Casey in a gay club just so he can get a blowjob in the bathroom. 

Casey’s getting his share of looks too, but he’s too drunk to actually notice. 

“I wanna dance.”

Dan snorts. “Yeah, okay. I saw your wedding video, Casey. You are a natural disaster.”

“So show me what to do!” Casey yells in his ear and then he’s tugging Dan toward the dance floor. 

“Jesus Christ,” Dan mutters. Before he can so much a blink, he’s got an armful of Casey. Casey, still wearing his crisp button down shirt, hair perfectly gelled. He looks like every cliche of an uptight, married businessman out for a night of sexual discovery. If Dan had met Casey tonight for the first time, he doesn’t know whether he would’ve been able to say no, despite the ring on Casey’s finger.

He hates himself for that, hates how much he’s enjoying the feel of Casey’s tentative hands around his neck while Dan’s rest high on his waist. 

They move to the beat. Well, Dan moves. Casey kind of stumbles along in time. Dan tries to lose himself in Depeche Mode, but it’s pretty impossible to think of anything but _Casey, Casey, Casey_.

It gets harder still when the song morphs into something dance-y that Dan doesn’t recognize. Casey falls into him, nosing up along his neck. 

“You smell good,” Casey slurs. 

Dan’s dick twitches hard in his pants and he angles his hips away. The touch of Casey’s lips against his skin, when it comes, is the best and worst kind of torture. Dan breathes hard, his grip tightening on Casey’s hips. Casey’s tongue inches out; he licks at Dan’s neck before mouthing clumsily. Stepping backward to dislodge him is the hardest thing Dan’s ever had to do in his life. 

He takes a deep breath, holding Casey by the shoulders. “Hey, Case, let's just get you home, huh?”

Casey’s eyes are cloudy and his mouth is red. He nods, unfocused, and lets Dan steer him out of the club. 

Dan deposits him into the cab and sits all the way on the other end, his dick still hard in his pants. Casey is passed out against the window pane, mouth slack, while Dan tries to remember how breathing works. 

Lisa is none too impressed with Dan hoisting her barely conscious husband into the house. 

“Um. Jägermeister?” Dan says by way of explanation. 

“Yeah, that’ll do it. C’mon.”

In tenuous silence they get him up to the bedroom. Dan carefully doesn’t look around; he doesn’t want to see this private space Casey and Lisa share.

“Thanks,” Lisa says as Dan straightens up. “I can handle the rest.”

He nods jerkily and leaves before Lisa can ask him anything else, taking two steps at a time. 

Dan doesn’t even make it to the bed when he gets back to his apartment. He falls back against the front door and pulls his cock out, leaking at the head as his hand flies over the shaft. He closes his eyes, focuses on the muscle memory of Casey’s hot breath on his skin, of Casey’s tongue on his throat, of his lips pressed against the overheated skin of his neck.

“Casey, Casey, god, Casey.” Dan repeats the words like a mantra until his legs are locking up and he’s coming, hard and fast and desperate all over his fist. 

Dan collapses onto his bed. He wakes up a few hours later and jerks off all over again.

He doesn’t know how he’ll ever come back from this. 

Naturally, Casey doesn’t mention it the next day or the day after that. Dan has no idea if it’s because he doesn’t remember or if he’s trying to win an award in repression. Casey isn’t acting any differently, but then again he’s always been pretty good at compartmentalizing. Certainly a lot better than Dan.

Dan can’t bring it up. He can’t. Lisa is having a kid in a few weeks. Casey’s kid. Dan can’t have this, could never have this. 

On Sam’s birthday, Casey comes over with beer and bad movies. 

“Lisa is about to pop any minute, man. You didn’t have to do this.”

“I wanted to,” is Casey’s response. 

Dan doesn’t cry, but it’s a near thing. 

They sit close on the couch but not enough to be touching. Dan doesn’t even want to sleep with Casey in that moment. He just wants to put his head on his shoulder. 

He doesn’t. 

Lisa gives birth the next day, in the early morning hours. Charles “Charlie” McCall is a perfect specimen and Dan’s never seen Casey beam like he does when Charlie’s in his arms. 

Dan goes back to New Hampshire a few days later, more fucked up than when he left.  
________________________

 

9a. **Spring 1991: Radio Song**

Sometimes Dan thinks he dreamt that moment with Casey, except none of his dreams were ever a gut-punch like that. Not even the ones where Sam dies. 

He begins dating Emily, a girl in his sports journalism course. Emily is smart and funny and might even know more sports stats than Dan. She’s probably the female version of Casey if there ever was one, and Dan is self-aware enough to realize that his infatuation might be multifaceted. But he’s crazy about her, woos her, even makes her a mix. That’s how he knows it’s serious. 

“What are your plans for this summer?” Casey asks in April, three months into this thing with Emily and one month away from graduation. Casey would be flying in for it, even though Dan had told him it wasn’t a big deal. 

(“You’re graduating! Finally going to be making your mark on the world, my young man. I’m not missing this,” Casey had said. He was more excited for Dan’s graduation than his own parents. More excited for it than Dan.)

“Don’t really have any plans,” Dan replies. 

Emily was graduating too, and she was local. Dan thought maybe they could just hang somewhere in New England together, seeing as he _really_ didn’t want to go back home. He’d successfully avoided it every summer since Sam died. 

“Come to Dallas.” 

Dan blinks. “What is in Dallas, exactly?” 

“Me.” 

“No,” Dan says slowly. “You are in Los Angeles, Casey. Do we need to go over geography again?” 

“That was one time.” 

“You didn’t know Los Angeles and San Jose were nowhere near each other.” 

“Look, I--”

“You were reporting on a _brand new upcoming hockey team_ and you didn’t realize it was in Northern California.” 

“I got it confused with San Diego!” 

Dan smiles, helplessly fond. “You are a sad, strange little man.” 

“Anyway, you’ve steered the train off the track once more. You. Me. Dallas. I’m moving to Dallas, Danny.” 

Dan’s mouth drops open. “You… what? Okay, I think you need to start from the beginning rather than the middle this time.” 

So Casey does. Tells Dan about a a radio station in Dallas that scouted him and Dana for a show. They want to pair him with a local sports radio commentator for their own afternoon program. 

“They’re giving Dana a ton of creative control. They loved the way she built up LASR’s demographic since becoming producer. So naturally I mentioned you for a writing position and she’s on board.” 

Dan has to pinch himself. “Surely it can’t be that easy? Don’t I need to interview or--” 

“Nope. You’re good to go if you want it, Danny. We’re moving in June and plan to be on the air by the beginning of July.” 

Dan thinks about Emily, about Casey, about the chance at a real job, a real fucking job in this career. A job with Casey. Being in the same city as Casey, who was -- beyond anything else -- the best fucking friend he’s ever had. 

Dan can’t give in that easily, though, despite the way his heart is trying to leap out of his chest. “I dunno, man. _Dallas_?” 

“Contrary to popular belief, Dallas is not exclusively populated by GOP rednecks with guns.” 

“I find this assessment suspect.” 

“Dan, say you’ll be my Big D Sports compadre.” 

Dan snorts. “Oh god, _Big D Sports_? That’s like if there were a show a New York show called Big Apple Business.” 

“Daaaannny.” 

“Don’t whine, Casey, it’s unattractive.” 

“Lies, I am always attractive.” 

Dan has to bite his lip so he doesn’t agree. 

“Okay,” he says, as if he hadn’t already made his decision five minutes ago.

“Okay?” Casey’s voice is so hopeful it hurts. 

“Yes, Casey. I will move to a red state for you. You’d better realize the gravity of my sacrifice.” 

“Duly noted,” is Casey’s solemn reply. 

Dan grins stupidly into the phone. 

“Um, so what about Emily?” 

Oh. Right. 

“Uh. Well, I guess we can try the long distance thing.”

Casey hums and Dan’s head starts to hurt. 

“How about Lisa? She cool with this?” 

“Lisa is rarely ‘cool’ with anything.” He sounds way too tired for a man that’s barely been married two years. 

“At least Charlie’s still really young,” Dan offers. 

“Yeah,” Casey sighs. “But this is the second time we’ve moved for my job. Last night she said if she wanted to move around the country, she would’ve married a hockey player.” 

“Ouch.” 

“Yeah.” 

“I’m sorry, man,” Dan says, and means it, too. 

“Thanks.”

Dan bites his lip. “But… I mean, she _is_ going, right?” 

Casey’s laughter is bitter. “Yeah, she’s going, all right. But I’d better hope she likes Dallas or I have a feeling I’ll be paying for this one for a long time.” 

“Well, think of it this way; I’ll be there to run interference now.” 

Casey laughs again, lighter this time. “Yeah. Might need you to handle quite a few interceptions.” 

“You name the play and I’ll execute it.” 

“Okay, I think this is overkill even for us.” 

Dan cracks up and soon Casey’s joining him, the two of them laughing like they haven’t a care in the world. 

Dallas. He’s moving to Dallas to work with Casey. He hasn’t felt this excited about anything in a long time. 

Reality crashes into the elation when he has to break the news to Emily. 

She cries on his shoulder. Dan nearly cries too, but he reassures her they’ll make it work, that he has to do this for his career. He isn’t sure how much either of them believe his words. 

His dad isn’t impressed, as if Dan couldn’t see that one coming a mile away. 

“Never heard of it.” 

“Well, no, you wouldn’t have as it’s a Dallas radio station and it’s going to be a brand new show.” 

“So it isn’t nationally syndicated.” 

Dan pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs into the receiver. “No, dad.” 

“And it’s got no built-in following, so it may ultimately fail.” 

“Anything can fail, Dad. You don’t know unless you try. And having this on my resume is a good step, it’s a step up.” 

“Yeah, well. Your sister is off at school now and your mom and I are looking to sell the house, don’t need all this room anymore. So try not to come back with your tail between your legs, eh, Danny? Can’t say there will be place for you.” 

Dan squeezes his eyes shut and grips the phone tighter. “There hasn’t been a place for a while.” 

They’re both silent for a moment. 

“You’ll be here for the graduation?”

“We will be there,” Jay replies flatly. 

“Tell mom I said hi.” 

Dan hangs up and throws the cordless phone across the room.  
________________________

Dan’s more nervous for Casey to meet his parents than he is Emily. 

He nearly pukes three times the day of his graduation. Emily is beaming and looks gorgeous, but Dan can’t stop seeking out Casey in the crowd. When he finds Casey he grins broadly, hand up in a dumb wave. 

Casey is wearing sunglasses and looks perfectly put together. He waves back and Dan’s whole body relaxes. 

When it’s over and Dan actually has a BFA to his name, he finds his parents. His mom is happy, his dad is reserved as ever. Casey manages to find them and then Dan’s introducing them all. 

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma'am,” he says to Dan’s mom, all charm. 

“Likewise. Dan’s mentioned you quite a bit.” 

Dan flushes. 

“Yeah. You’re the Dallas big shot?”

Casey laughs. “Well, not yet but I hope to be? Great to meet you, sir. You’ve got a pretty fantastic son.” Casey’s shaking his dad’s hand. Dan can see the way Jay immediately tenses up. 

“That’s a matter of opinion, now, isn’t it.” 

His dad’s tone is just dry enough that someone who doesn’t know him -- like Casey -- would think he’s joking around. 

So all Casey does is laugh again, all beautiful teeth and perfect hair, while Dan wants to sink into the ground. 

Emily joins them then, breathless in her adrenaline and excitement. Dan’s never been more uncomfortable in his life. 

He feels stiff with his arm around Emily. Too aware of Casey’s presence at his side, too aware of his Dad looking on. 

They all get some refreshments at the reception but it isn’t long before his parents are saying their goodbyes. 

“Oh? I thought we’d all go out to dinner. I know my parents were hoping to meet you,” Emily says. 

“Sorry, but we need to get back,” Jay replies, and actually manages to sound sincere. 

Casey’s watching the scene with fascination. Dan needs a drink or ten. 

“Well, we can go,” Emily says brightly when they’ve left. “And Casey, you’re more than welcome to join.” 

Dan can’t stand the thought of having to be on for Emily’s parents right now. 

He leans in and kisses her temple. “Babe, how about you and your parents go? I’m not really feeling it.”

“Dan…” 

“I think I just wanna catch up with Casey, if that’s cool? We can do brunch tomorrow” 

He ignores Casey’s mouthing of ‘brunch’ over Emily’s shoulder. 

“All right.” Her disappointment is evident. Dan feels like an ass, but he needs to just -- not be here right now. “It was great meeting you, Casey.” 

“Likewise,” Casey says, kissing her hand like some kind of slick movie Frenchman. 

Dan rolls his eyes and then they’re walking out of the reception tent and onto the main lawn. “I need to get drunk.” 

Casey’s hand is warm and firm on his bicep. “Then let’s get you drunk.” 

Dan’s a terrible drunk because if he’s alone he’s just maudlin, but if he’s with someone and _already_ maudlin then he lets it all spill out. So that’s what he does. Tells Casey the Daniel and Jacob Rydell saga while Casey listens on. 

“One day he’ll come around. You’re his son,” Casey says, like he’s got some infinite wisdom since he’s now a father himself. 

“Sure. Maybe when I’m anchoring Sports Center.” 

Casey laughs. “Yeah. Maybe.” 

“Thanks for being here today, man.” 

They’re in Dan’s room, sitting on the floor amidst mostly packed boxes. Dan squeezes Casey’s shoulder. 

“Of course.” 

Casey tips his head back against the bed and turns to look at him, eyes a little hazy and smile lopsided. 

Dan’s breath catches in his chest as their gaze holds for too long a beat. He wants nothing more than to lean forward. 

Instead, he clears his throat and forces his gaze away, turning to stare at the ceiling. 

“This one of your mixes?” Casey murmurs. Dan totally forgot he had music on, R.E.M. streaming through his tape deck. 

“Yep.” 

Dan is hyper aware of every single place they’re touching. Which is basically shoulder to hip. He squeezes his eyes shut. 

“You gonna have to go back home before the move?” 

“Just to figure out if there’s anything else I wanna take. Otherwise I’m staying with Emily and her folks for a bit.”

“Intense,” Casey says, and Dan snorts. 

“Look, we’ve got a place already set up. Extra room that’ll end up being an office. I can throw an air mattress in there if you want, till you find a place in Dallas.” 

Dan’s eyes widen at that. He really shouldn’t. He doesn’t exactly have the best relationship with Lisa, despite how little they know one another. 

“I was probably just gonna drive out, use some of my savings to get a cheap motel and then look around?” 

“Well, the offer’s open. Seriously.” 

“Thanks, Casey,” Dan says quietly, still unable to believe this is really happening. 

Casey crashes on his floor and Dan drives him to the airport the next morning. Then he goes home and jerks off to thoughts of Casey for the first time in a long time, before getting ready to go to brunch with his girlfriend. 

Dan might have a BFA now, but he’s still as stupid as ever.  
________________________

9b. **Summer 1991: Disappear**

Dan finds a place to live shortly after the cross country drive to Dallas. (The drive was awesome. Just Dan, his music, and the open road.) 

The apartment he finds is reasonable enough, and he’s just grateful he didn’t have to cohabitate with Casey and Lisa after all. Casey invites him over once both of them are a little more settled. Their house is nice, nicer than Dan could ever imagine owning himself. It’s weird how being around Casey still makes him feel like he’s a kid playing at adulthood, even though he’s just a few months shy of twenty-two. 

Casey’s got a big backyard with a pool and a barbeque. Charlie’s toys are spread all over the patio and Lisa steps around them, barefoot in a sundress. She smiles at Dan but it doesn’t reach her eyes. 

“You old enough to drink?” she asks, holding a beer just out of his reach. 

Casey comes up beside her, kissing her shoulder. “Stop foolin’ around and give the man a beer.”  
Lisa smirks and Dan wonders if that was her trying to be playful. He’s never really seen it before. 

“Thanks. I love the place, you’ve done a nice job.” 

Lisa hums. “Yeah. Doesn’t feel like home yet.” 

“It will,” Casey and Dan say at the same time, before sharing a smile. Dan pretends not to see Lisa’s eye roll. 

Dan plays with Charlie while Casey barbeques and Lisa suns by the pool. As it turns out Charlie loves him and Dan is pretty smitten himself. 

By the time he leaves that night he’s full of good food, consumed in good company, and with the scary notion that he could get far too used to this. 

Their threesome becomes a foursome (well, five if you count Charlie) with Dana frequently joining in. Sometimes Dan wonders if it bothers Lisa that she sees Casey’s work colleagues multiple times a week, but Dan figures if it really did Casey would say something. Plus, Lisa’s known Dana since college. 

The writing is going great. Dan does some dialogue for the general segments and then the two of them work on Casey’s material together, bouncing ideas off one another. Jim, the other anchor, won’t let Dan write a word for him. Casey can’t stand him. One morning Jim calls in last minute and Dana nearly has a cow. 

“Let Danny do it,” Casey says, causing everyone to freeze in place. 

“Uh--” Dan says. 

“You’ve heard his tapes. He should be in the sub pool.”

“Casey, I’m not sure--” Dana starts. 

“He can do this. Give him a shot, Dana.” 

Dan watches them square off, silent dialogue passing between them. 

“All right. Don’t make me regret this, Dan.” 

Dan just may throw up. 

He puts on his coolest persona, the one that’s never had a panic attack a day in his life. It’s easier with Casey right beside him. Dan already knows the script like the back of his hand. Somehow, he makes it through and doesn’t die. He’s never seen Casey look so proud of him. 

Dan thinks it’s something he could get addicted to.  
________________________

10\. **1992: Who Are You**

Dan and Emily make it six months after Dan moves to Dallas. Honestly, it’s five months more than he’d expected. Dan’s pretty sure he was in love with her. It didn’t feel the same way he feels about Casey, but then again Dan’s pretty sure nothing ever will. He can’t spend the remainder of his life comparing anyone else he meets to Casey, or he might as well just give up completely. 

So Dan starts dating again. It’s more difficult to sleep with men in Texas. In L.A. it was easy, in college it even more so. But Dan’s out of his element here. He finds himself going to seedy clubs just to get his rocks off, not knowing if someone is going to be lurking around the corner to beat him up. It’s easier to hook up with women, so that’s what he finds himself doing more. 

Dan’s filled in for Jim on the radio a handful more times, and every time he does, calls come into the station from women asking who “the young sounding guy with the nice voice” is.

“Dan’s tapping into a female demographic I didn’t even know we _had_ ,” Dana exclaims one morning. 

Casey just hums over his coffee cup. Dan realizes it’s the first time he’s ever actually seen Casey jealous of him. So of course he teases him about it for the rest of the week.

Dan feels -- content, for the first time in his life. Sure, he’s not great. Sure, he still thinks about Sam every day and the dysfunctional relationship with his family. He’s essentially missed Julia’s entire childhood and he’s only seen David’s kids a handful of times. But Dan actually feels like he’s doing something with his life now. He sends his parents a cassette recording of one of the radio broadcasts he did. His mom calls to say they listened and enjoyed it. His dad doesn’t come to the phone. 

Dan spends a lot of time with Casey, sometimes with Lisa and Charlie as well. Sometimes just him, Casey, and Charlie. He can always tell when Casey and Lisa have been fighting. Dana’s babysat a few times so Casey and Lisa could take some time for themselves. Dan’s offered as well, but Lisa’s never taken him up on it. 

Dan doesn’t so much get over Casey as he accepts his fate. He’s lowkey in love with his best friend. It’s a part of him now, like his grief over Sam which—- although it’s gotten more bearable over time — has never truly gone away and never will. 

They're almost comforting, these feelings for Casey. They remind Dan of who he is and the boxes he puts things in. They remind him of fantasy versus reality and how maybe it’s better to never open certain doors. 

At any rate, that’s what he tells himself.  
________________________

11\. **1993: Soul to Squeeze**

“We got an offer,” Dana says after calling Dan into her office. Casey is already there. 

“An offer?” Dan asks. 

She looks like she’s about to jump out of her chair, her fingers and feet both tapping. Casey looks like he’s holding himself still with an effort. “We’ve been offered a show. Lone Star Sports. Local station, nightly broadcast. TV.”

Dan’s mouth drops open. Casey is smiling at him and nodding. 

“When you say we…”

“Dana’s getting final say seeing as she’s head producer, and I told her I wouldn’t do it without you.” 

Dan scratches the back of his neck. “I, uh, haven’t done many shows…” 

Casey shrugs. “They like what you _have_ done, they’re impressed with your writing, and most importantly they like me.” 

Dan bites his lip. “Okay,” he says slowly. “But what about Late Night?” 

Casey’s name had been getting tossed around as one of the possible replacements for David Letterman. After he’d had a few guest spots on Sports Center in the past year, a good portion of America had fallen in love with Casey McCall’s GQ looks, undeniable screen presence and dry wit. 

(Dan knew the feeling).

The Late Night gig would mean Casey moving to New York. It was possible Dan had had one or two anxiety attacks about it lately. 

Casey waves his hand. “That isn’t a thing. This is.” 

Dan eyes him speculatively before turning to Dana. “You’re serious? This isn’t some cruel joke because I fumbled that baseball player’s name last week?” 

Dana laughs. “I’m serious, Dan Rydell. They want me, they want Casey, and when we pitched you they want you as well. Especially after hearing about how much attention you’ve gotten from women with just your voice, and then seeing what you look like.” 

Casey turns and glares at her. “Excuse me, you didn’t tell me that part. Am I chopped liver here?” 

Dan throws his head back as he laughs. “Awww, don’t hate me ‘cuz I’m beautiful.” 

“Relax, Casey, you’re still the male model in this scenario. Danny’s different, though. He brings an indefinable boyish charm. He’s like a puppy in a store window.” 

“I’m like a puppy,” Dan repeats flatly. 

“A puppy that women would like to take home, yes.” 

Casey makes a constipated face while Dan considers that. “Bestiality implications aside, I will allow it.” 

Dana claps her hands together. “So, what do you say, boys? Are we doing this?” 

Dan and Casey turn to one another, communication silent between them. 

“I think we’d have to be crazy not to,” Dan says to Dana. 

Television. It was going to happen.  
________________________

“Lone Star Sports? Never heard of it.” 

Dan drags a hand through his hair. It was deja vu all over again. “You wouldn’t have. Once again, it’s a brand new show.” 

“Is--”

“And before you ask, no, it isn't nationally syndicated. It’s a local channel in Dallas but it’s sports and it’s TV and yeah, it could eventually go national. I’m excited, Dad.”

“Good for you, Danny.” The words aren’t sincere. They’re passive aggressive at best. Dan wants to scream, wants to start a fight. He wants to get out everything he’s been holding back since Sam, but he also knows it won’t change anything. 

His words to his dad will never bring Sam back, nor will any of his own accomplishments, and that’s the real sticking point here. 

“I’ll send you the tape after we air. Love to Mom.” 

Dan’s shaking as he hangs up the phone. For the first time in a long time, he just wants to get high. 

He thinks about calling Casey but it’s early Saturday evening and he’s probably having dinner with Lisa and Charlie. 

Instead, he pulls out his stash of cassette tapes and sets about making a mix. Dan has begun buying CDs more often than not, but he can’t bring himself to do the transfers that way. It would mean giving up on the dual tape deck Sam had told him to buy. He runs his fingers over it and smiles. It’s been ten years and the thing still works great. 

“Thanks, Sammy,” Dan whispers, and gets to work.  
________________________

“I have a perfectly good suit,” Dan says for the millionth time since they left for the mall. 

“You have a perfectly good suit that is five years old.” 

“So?” 

“So, this is your television debut. You need to dazzle.”

“Oh my god, you did not just say _dazzle_.” 

Casey claps him on the shoulder. “Will you just let me do this for you? It’s my treat.”

Dan shakes his head as they walk into the store. “If we were dating, I might have killed you by now.” 

He hears Casey sputter behind him. Dan curses his brain-to-mouth filter, or lack thereof. 

Neither of them say anything, quietly perusing the suits. Dan isn’t sure why it feels so awkward all of a sudden. He’s sure he’s made some kind of joke like that in the past, if more indirect. He begins to feel itchy. 

A dance song comes on and Dan rolls his eyes. “This music is terrible.” 

Casey laughs beside him. “Yes, well, not everyone can have your impeccable music tastes.” 

“Damn straight.” 

There’s a beat of companionable silence before Casey says, “Hey, I know this. It was playing in that club we went to in LA.” 

Dan had felt a jolt of -- something -- when the song came on, and now it’s perfectly clear why. His whole world tilts on its axis. Casey… if Casey remembers _that_ , then he absolutely remembers… 

Why would he never mention it, though? Was his repression that formidable? Did he think that _Dan_ didn’t remember?

And why bring it up now, so casually, so… carelessly. He doesn’t like to think of Casey as cruel, but then again, Casey has his own damage. Dan knows a lot of it is centered around ego. Keeping people in his orbit. The same orbit Dan hasn’t wanted to leave. 

Dan’s mind is going a mile a minute, the panic slowly building. He takes a few slow and steady breaths, back mostly turned to Casey. 

“That was a while ago, huh,” Dan muses, careful to sound nonchalant.

“Yeah,” Casey says quietly. “Yeah, it was.” He sounds almost -- wistful. Dan doesn’t know when he stepped into a different reality, but he’d like to get back to his own as soon as possible. 

“Let’s get back to my Pretty Woman moment, huh? Do I get cufflinks, too? Do I?” 

Casey laughs and when he meets Dan’s eyes it’s like the way it always is between them. “Whatever you want, Julia.” 

Dan whoops. “You’re the best sugar daddy ever, man.” 

His heart has mostly calmed down by the time he’s trying on the clothes. 

Mostly.  
________________________

Casey hasn’t seemed right today. Or, maybe even for a few days. He’s come into work looking like he hasn’t slept, and he spends a long time on the phone. Dan doesn’t know what’s up with him. 

“Are you okay?” Dan asks. 

“Huh? I’m fine.” 

“Are you sure?” Dan asks, studying his script yet not seeing the words. “Because you don’t seem fine.”

“Danny, I’m fine. Stop.” 

“You’ve been taking a lot of phone calls behind closed doors,” Dan says. 

“Danny--” 

“I’m just saying if you were given an offer, in, oh I don’t know, _New York_ \--” 

“Dan, stop it. There is no offer.” 

“Then they turned you down.” 

“Danny! Can you please focus on the fact that we’re about to go on the air for our very first show?” 

Dan frowns, sneaking a glance at Casey. “Okay. Sure, Case.” 

“Thank you,” Casey murmurs. “You ready for this?”

Dan takes a deep breath. “As ready as I’ll ever be.” 

“Done it before,” Casey points out. 

“Thirty seconds to air!” Dana yells and Dan’s stomach tightens. 

“Not where people could see me.” 

“I could see you.” 

“Yes, well. You always have.” Dan doesn’t mean to get that sappy, but he can’t help it. Casey will just have to deal. 

“You sentimental fool, you.” 

They both laugh quietly. Dan’s stomach clenches more, for a completely different reason. 

“You look good,” Casey says after a beat, eyes down at his script. 

“Thanks, I’ll tell my sugar daddy you approve.” 

“I don’t even wanna know,” mutters Dana over the comm. 

Dan snorts. He tries some even breathing, in, out, in. He told his parents tonight was the big night, but it’s not like they’d get the station anyway. Dan’s still going to have a copy of the broadcast mailed to them, but he isn’t holding out hope for any sort of congratulations. At least not from his dad, anyway. His mom will probably offer up some polite enthusiasm. 

“You got this, Danny,” Casey says, quiet but firm. 

Casey gave him the lead-in tonight. Dan’s kind of shocked Casey’s letting him have the limelight, but who is he to complain?

“Thanks, Casey.” Dan tries to make those two words convey the weight of his sincerity, his appreciation for everything Casey’s given him. Despite the fact that Casey is also the person who confounds and confuses Dan more than anyone has or probably ever will. 

He still doesn’t know what to make of that bombshell in the department store. Doesn’t know what to think about the way Casey’s been flirting with Dana even more recently or how that always seems to happen right around the same time his fights with Lisa increase. Casey’s gone so far as to crash on Dan’s couch a number of times in the past few weeks, and Dan’s absolutely certain it has something to do with Late Night. It’s begun to feel all too natural to wake up and find Casey already in his kitchen, hunched over the coffeemaker. He wishes he minded. 

So yeah, he doesn’t know how to reconcile any of these things in his head. All Dan knows is that this is still where he wants to be. That can’t imagine himself anywhere else anymore. 

“Ready in three, two…” 

With Casey on his left, Dan jumps off the ledge. 

“I’m Dan Rydell, alongside Casey McCall for the foreseeable future.” He half-turns to Casey then, shooting him a small but genuine smile that causes Casey to blink. “And we’d like to welcome you all to Lone Star Sports. Those stories plus…” 


	3. I've Been Living in Your Cassette

_if dreams are like movies_  
_then memories are films about ghosts_  
__________________________

12\. **Spring 2000: Californication**

“Why did you stop making your tapes?” Casey asks Dan, apropos of nothing, while they’re attempting to write what could be one of their last scripts together.

“Excuse me?” Dan shifts his gaze to Casey, who has yet to look up from where he’s (not) writing.

Casey raises his head after a beat, his pencil tapping against the desk. “Your mixtapes. I don’t think you’ve made a new one in… years.”

“How do you even know that?” As far as Dan can recall, he only made Casey the one mix and never really talked about his hobby outside of that. 

“I saw them in your glove compartment. When we took Charlie to Wildwood last summer and you got us lost and _finally_ allowed me to consult the map while you took Charlie inside the gas station to get a soda.” 

Dan blinks. “Okay, one: _you_ got us lost. You were my navigator. Two: this is an eleven-month delayed question, then?” 

Casey shrugs. “Why’d you stop?” 

Dan frowns. “Who’s to say I did?” 

“All your tapes are old. You date them.” 

Dan hums, disinterested. 

“And you’ve been listening to that one with that sad song a lot more lately, whenever we’re in your car together.” 

“ _Which_ sad song?”

“The duet with that dude and the chick.” 

Dan’s heart seizes but he plays it cool. He feigns interest in his computer. “I love that you refer to Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush as _that dude and the chick_.”  
“We all can’t have your superior musical intellect.” 

Dan snorts. “I’ll say. And since when did you become Mr. Observant?” 

“I’m just saying.” Casey puts his hands up, the picture of innocence. 

Dan rolls his eyes. “Sure you are.” 

This feels calculated, like Casey is trying to get something out of Dan, like this is part of their repair work. Sometimes Dan thinks Casey feels the need to fix _him_ and not just _them_. Like it’s his task, instead of Abby’s. No. Instead of Dan’s.

Dan nearly deflects the question again. He’s tired down to his bones and he’s got a million things on his mind. Rebecca and her phone number in a garbage can. 

Instead, he says, “It was 1994. My tape deck broke.” 

“Your tape deck broke,” Casey repeats, disbelieving. 

“That’s my story, counselor, and I’m sticking to it.” Dan stands up. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

He walks out of his -- _their_ \-- office toward the water cooler. 

It was 1994. The tape deck Sam selected for him had finally bit the dust. Dan couldn’t bring himself to replace it. Transferring from CD to tape held no appeal either, since Sam wasn’t around to tell him the best brands to buy. So Dan just -- stopped. He bought a single, cheap cassette player instead of a dual one and hooked his discman up to his shitty speakers. In his car, Dan listened to his old mixes and random albums he’d bought over the years.

The fact that Casey has noticed him playing a certain tape more often makes Dan feel itchy. It’s the one he made in the wake of Sam’s death. He’d been listening to it pretty consistently since he’d started seeing Abby. _Why now?_ And she doesn’t know, but maybe Dan does, or maybe he can. Maybe he can bring it back with the music.

Dan takes a long drink of water. He thinks about the flowers Rebecca sent him. He thinks about Casey telling him he can do it alone. He thinks about a fresh start, maybe the first one he’s ever had. 

He thinks about Sam and what he might say if he could see Dan now, nearly thirty-one and no less confused than he was ten years ago. 

He heads back to finish his script.  
__________________________

Dan is standing in front of their office, watching Casey search around for his keys in his desk. Casey’s kind of drunk and Dan isn’t faring much better. Everyone else is still down at Anthony’s. Rebecca’s probably in her hotel or wherever she’s staying. 

Throwing himself into feelings for someone he barely knew to avoid ones he never really got rid of for someone else wasn’t the healthiest of choices. 

“I have to go.” 

Casey looks up and Dan can see him squinting. “Okay? Hang on, I’ll walk out with you. We’ll get a cab.” 

Dan shakes his head, dragging a hand through his hair. “To L.A. I have to go, Casey.” 

Casey’s in the process of turning around and freezes mid-step upon hearing Dan’s words. He stares at Dan as if he’s grown another head. “What -- I’m sorry, did you miss what happened tonight? You were there.”

“I was there,” Dan confirms. “And I still need to take the job if they want me.” 

“What? _Why_? If this because of --” Casey waves between the two of them and Dan’s heart stutters while a chill travels up his back. “The rebuilding, Danny, I--” 

Dan lets out a breath. “No,” he replies firmly. “No, we’re good, Case. Look, you’re probably the most important person in my life. Which is why I’m going to tell you -- from the bottom of my heart, from the depths of my _soul_ that. This. Has. Nothing. To. do. With. You. For once.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean? For once?” 

“It means this is about me. I’m doing this for me. Because I don’t know if I can.”

Casey pinches the bridge of his nose. “Dan -- I’m too drunk for this conversation. I told you, you can do it.” 

“Exactly, Casey. _You_ told me. It’s -- fuck, it’s always been you, Casey. The job at Big D: you. The job at Lone Star: you. Sports Night: you. Nothing I’ve accomplished up until this point has been because of me.” 

“That’s a damn lie. You got yourself the original internship at LASR.”

Dan laughs bitterly, leaning back against the doorway. “Nah, man. My professor took pity on my grieving ass, had me apply, and wrote a moving and heartfelt recommendation that I’m pretty damn sure mentioned the words dead brother.” 

“You don’t know that.” 

“I know I wasn’t worth shit those first two semesters of college. I might have been _interested_ in some of my classes, but I was barely holding it together.” And wishing he could get high. Every day. 

“You did great at the internship, though. You came back every year.” 

Dan laughs again. “Because of you and Dana. Casey, c’mon.”

Casey shakes his head. “What about Dartmouth? I wasn’t there. I had nothing to do with you graduating.” 

“Big deal. I graduated college, something tons of people do every year.” 

“Ivy League, Dan. _After_ you could have just quit and no one would’ve blamed you. That _is_ a big deal.” 

Dan sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face. “I’ve never been on a job interview in my life, Casey. Do you even realize that? This interview in L.A. -- that was my first one _ever_ and I was scared shitless.” 

“So this is about me.” 

Dan pinches the bridge of his nose. “Jesus, did you just listen to a word I said?”

“I did! I did indeed. And what I heard was it’s about me.”

Dan nods jerkily. “Of course you did.” 

“No, seriously. If I hadn’t put a good word in on the internships, if I hadn’t gotten you the Big D job, the Lone Star job. It’s all my fault. This feeling you have of -- of not being good enough.”

“Casey. If it’s your fault, then it’s Dana’s fault, too. Then it’s my professor’s fault. Then it’s everybody’s fault but _mine_ and that’s _bullshit_ , man. I’m tired of assuaging blame or guilt. I let things happen to me. I followed. And I coasted along without really being tested. And I can do it. I know I can do it. With you. Us. _We_ do it. But I need to know how I am alone when I’m not… here, Casey. And that’s on me. Not you, not anybody else.”

“So you regret it, then. All of it.” 

“Casey.” Dan meets his eyes levelly. “You told me recently you wouldn’t trade our working together for anything. And I need you to know that goes the same for me. Despite my own feelings of inadequacy --” Dan pauses, swallowing hard. “I still wouldn’t do anything differently. But I have to do this now, and I’m asking you to understand.” 

Casey shakes his head again, like if he does it enough this will begin making sense to him. “You’re just leaving me, leaving us. The show.” 

“You can do the show.” 

“With whom?” 

“Bobbi? She’s good.” 

“She’s certifiable. You said so yourself.” 

“Who isn’t?” Dan shrugs. “Plus, I don’t really think that anymore.”

They look at one another for a long beat, and Dan’s heart begins pounding far too loudly. 

“So you’re just going to go.” 

“I’m going to try. Just try, Casey.” 

Casey scoffs and looks away. “What, like a sabbatical? You know no one will go for that.” 

“An unofficial sabbatical? A -- a chance to see what’s out there. My contract won’t lock me in forever.” 

“This isn’t kindergarten, Dan, where you get to play with all the different toys in the room until you decide which one is your favorite.” 

Dan sighs. “This is what I’m doing, Casey, with or without your acceptance.” 

“Fine,” Casey replies shortly. “We still splitting a cab?” 

Dan’s mouth opens and closes. “Uh, yeah. If you want to.”

Casey doesn’t reply, just walks out the door without looking back, expecting Dan to follow. It hits Dan that pretty soon he won’t be following. 

It’s the world’s most awkward cab ride. Worse than _that_ cab ride in L.A. years earlier, because at least Dan was the only conscious one that time. 

“What about Rebecca?” Casey asks quietly as they pull up in front of Dan’s apartment.

Dan’s digging into his wallet for some cash and doesn’t look up. “I told her if I went out with her I’d probably not want to leave. I said it before I knew the show was saved. And I’m still leaving and not in a position to pursue a serious relationship right now.”

Dan looks over after he hands the cab driver the money. Casey’s got his mouth open, like he wants to say something, but he seems to think better of it and only nods instead, his expression unreadable. 

Dan tries not to obsess over what Casey would have said.  
__________________________

Everything happens so fast after that. Dan is busy getting everything together for leaving, and Casey’s busy watching Dan. Everyone offers up their hugs, congratulations and salutations; Casey acts like someone’s died. 

Before Dan knows it, a month has passed and it’s time to go.

“Wear lots of sunscreen,” Casey says as he pulls up to departures area of JFK. Dan told him he would’ve been fine taking a cab, but Casey waved that idea off like it was dumber than him borrowing Natalie’s car for the afternoon. Sometimes, Dan could admit defeat in trying to understand Casey’s brain. 

“Yes, Dad.”

“You need a car there. Are you getting a new one?” Casey asks as they get out of Natalie’s Mazda and walk around to the trunk. 

“No, I’m having mine shipped.”

“Does it pass smog regulations?”

Dan laughs. “I guess I’ll find out?” 

Casey’s pulled one of his bags out of the trunk and is standing there, awkwardly. 

Dan shifts from one foot to the other. “I’ll call. The show finishes before mine even begins.”

He can’t bring himself to call it _Casey’s_ show. 

Casey’s nod is a jerky one. “You’re gonna kill it.”

Dam laughs ruefully. “Says you.”

“Knows me.”

“Oh, man, am I going to miss you,” Dan says around a more genuine laugh. 

Casey looks constipated, which is also his ‘I'm experiencing too many feelings and can’t handle it’ face.

“C’mere,” Dan murmurs and steps in for a hug.

Casey’s warm and solid in his arms. They haven’t done this nearly enough in the past twelve years. Dan feels a rush of emotion, all the longing and want and love that he’s felt for this man for over a decade culminating in one embrace. 

Clearing his throat he steps back, wiping conspicuously at his eyes. Casey’s are a little shiny too and Dan takes a moment to be impressed. 

He grabs the bag from Casey, hauling it onto one shoulder before grabbing the his other bag out of the trunk and doing the same. “I’ll see you,” Dan says, voice rough as he turns around. 

“Hey Danny,” Casey calls. 

Dan looks over his shoulder, watches as Casey bites his lip. 

“You told me once, during the height of the Rebecca saga, that you’re your best on the air. I’m telling you right now that’s not true. You’re great on the air, Dan, but that’s one out of twenty-four hours in a day. I’m kind of fond of those other twenty-three hours. And I’ve got twelve years of history to back that statement up.” 

Dan stares at him, mouth working as tears sting his eyes. When Casey does feelings, he really fucking does them. 

“Thank you, Casey,” he manages, the words choked. 

“Bye, Danny,” Casey replies softly. 

Dan’s done pretty well at curbing his desire to kiss Casey throughout the years, but it’s back tenfold now. He turns and walks into the terminal before he does or says something they can’t find their way back from.  
__________________________

13\. **Summer-Fall 2000: Black-eyed**

Dan has been so used to walking into Casey McCall the past twelve years of his life that it’s weird to be the one to have walked away this time. Just as he had no idea who he was after Sam died and he wasn’t getting high all the time, Dan similarly has no idea who he is without Casey. 

He has phone sessions with Abby once a week, at least until he considers finding someone else out here. 

(“Are you sure this is gonna work?” Dan asked the first time they spoke. “You won’t be able to tell if I’m lying.”

“Trust me, Dan. I can tell.”)

L.A. isn’t much different than when Dan left it. When he walks around downtown he can almost pretend he’s still in New York. Dan honestly hadn’t expected to miss the city as much as he missed the people in it. In that way, his experience here is nothing like it was when he was in college. Dan never truly had a _place_ that he’d felt settled into back then. Now, he’s uprooted and adrift. L.A. hasn’t changed, but Dan has.

The show is terrifying and Dan comes extremely close to a panic attack before the first broadcast. He goes through what Abby’s taught him, and he’s able to reign it in. He puts on his cool facade for his colleagues so they don’t realize what a trainwreck they’ve hired, but that’s almost worse. At least his friends and co-workers back home had a vague idea of what Dan’s bravado covers up. 

Being in L.A. and on a brand new show makes Dan feel like he’s right back in the cafeteria. He might have been “on” with his coworkers at Sports Night more often than not, but out here it’s as if he has no other choice. Because if Dan isn’t on, isn’t shooting zingers, isn’t Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky, then he’s back at that lunch table, two seconds away from a panic attack and throwing up the food he barely touched in the bathroom. 

So Dan loses himself in his TV persona and goes on the air each night with someone who isn’t Casey and who also isn’t as well-known as he is. Dan’s the star this time, the one in the spotlight. It feels almost hollow, but it’s necessary right now. It’s something he has to try. 

Outside the show, he becomes Hit and Run Dan again, and his coworkers eat up the act. He recognizes his actions, so much more self aware now that he’s in therapy. And he’s falling into old patterns. Patterns he doesn’t necessarily know how to break, especially coming to a place where he’s a stranger, sans his TV personality. First impressions are everything. Dan couldn’t exactly move out here and be a loner. Not when he's trying to fit in, trying to become the face of the show, to be the person who carries a show. 

He falls back into the old patterns. And it’s so damn easy. And he’s doing it, he’s succeeding, but he feels as fake as this city. 

He begins to wonder who he’s doing this all for. Is it really for himself? Or is it to ease his insecurities --- to be liked by everyone, just because he’s on TV. To get seen, recognized, and treated like he's somebody. Because if there’s one thing Dan knows it’s that without the path that Casey help create for him, he never would have amounted to anything in this world. And if everything he’s amounted to is just one big gimmick, just another talking head on TV pretending to be something they’re not -- then has he really accomplished anything at all? 

_”I’d rather be a fake somebody than a real nobody.”_ He’d dragged Casey to see _The Talented Mr. Ripley_ adaptation last year, and that line got him where it hurts. But lately, when he watches Casey’s show -- and then calls him at midnight EST so they can break it down together -- he thinks about the night that he came back from Abby’s, and Casey looked up and saw him and lit up, waving him over, and Dan felt it like a knife. 

The night he’d said to Casey that there might be some times when he wouldn’t be funny. Might just need to sit quietly. That he couldn’t always be on. He remembers the way Casey knew exactly what Dan was talking about without him having to spell it out. That was real. That was real and Dan would take that over being fake, because at the end of the day it’s someone in the world who cared about him. The real him. Someone who listened, and worried, and knew him. Who knows where he comes from.  
Out here Dan can be a different person; he can be the person he always wanted to be. But it’s getting harder to wear the mask. And if he keeps doing it, then it just seems like this entire West Coast experiment will be for nothing. 

So, slowly and bit by bit, Dan peels it away. He doesn’t hit and run as much. If he’s got something to say to someone he’ll say it and if he doesn’t, he won’t join in. He keeps to himself a little more, reads during his downtime (self-help books, _Persepolis_ , _Me Talk Pretty One Day_.). He keeps it real. And it feels good, to be making those breakthroughs. It feels good to just _be_ sometimes.

Dan doesn’t hook up with guys like he did the last time he lived in L.A. He could, without question. It would be as easy as it’d always been, but Dan is carrying a show now and he can’t afford to be sloppy. He wants to, though. Wants badly to get fucked by some Venice Beach gym rat with a perfect tan and blonde surfer hair. 

If his daily phone calls with Casey are the highlight of his week, that’s his business and his alone.  
__________________________

14\. **Fall-Winter 2001: Hear You Me**

Dan wakes up, blindly turns on his TV, and hears urgent voices coming from the set as he’s fiddling with the coffee maker. He walks back into the living room, still wiping the sleep out of his eyes and then freezes at the bottom headline and the images on the screen. 

His first urge is to call Casey. His landline hasn’t rung all morning. He checks his Nokia, no messages. He knows logically Casey wouldn’t have been in the area (probably wouldn’t have; shouldn’t have; could have--) and does a mental catalogue of everyone else. Aside from Abby, the only people he knows who live in the city live mid or uptown. Charlie’s school isn’t nearby. He watches the TV in disbelief, tears welling up in his eyes as he reaches for his phone. By now it’s already 10 a.m. there. The south tower fully collapsed exactly one minute ago. Dan can barely breathe as he dials, as he watches.

Casey answers on the second ring.

“Jesus Christ, Danny,” Casey says without preamble, voice unlike Dan’s ever heard it. 

“I know. I just -- I just saw. Shit, Casey, what’s happening? What’s it even like over there?” 

“I don’t know. I don’t -- surreal? Like -- you can’t see anything, from where my apartment is, but this is _happening_ out there. You can hear the sirens in the distance. Charlie’s school closed earlier. Lisa was able to get there and get him, but she said it’s eerie. Hardly any cars on the streets except emergency vehicles.”

Dan tries to interrupt, but Casey keeps going, his voice growing more anxious with every rambling word. “I don’t know what we’re doing about the show tonight. I think everyone who can get here is coming in for 2pm rundown since noon was, uh, cancelled. We’re going to figure it out at that point. Dana’s pretty sure we’ll be pre-empted. The phone lines keep going in and out, that’s why I didn’t call you. Working now, though. Lisa picked Charlie up from school.”

Dam grips the phone tighter. ”Yeah, yeah, you told me about Charlie, Casey. Are you okay, buddy?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m just -- I just. Fuck.” 

“Yeah,” Dan says, staring at his screen as he sees footage for the first time of the planes hitting the towers. The estimated death toll keeps rising, not that the anchors seem to have any _clue_.

He’d last spoken to Casey a few days ago. It was Dan’s birthday. Casey called and deliberately sang him the birthday song all the way through. Dan had replied, “That’s nice, now do it on the air and show me you mean business.”

That feels like a different world now.

“They didn’t know what it was at first, they said maybe a plane had lost control. Then the second plane hit, and the Pentagon, and they started saying terrorist attack.”

“Fuck.”

“Charlie was already on the bus to go to school.”

“Charlie’s fine, Casey. Remember? He’s home safe with Lisa.” Dan cannot be the voice of reason right now, not when his entire body feels coiled tight and his anxiety is riotcheting upward. He thinks about how freaked out they both were during the bomb threat and how this pales in comparison to that, isn’t even on the same wavelength. 

“You know what I was thinking — watching all this play out on TV this morning?”

“What?”

“Today’s 9/11. Aka 9-1-1. Emergency. It’s like some cruel coded joke.”

“Yeah,” Dan murmurs and tries to take a few even breaths so as not to have a panic attack while trying to talk Casey off the ledge. 

“Shit, what’s happening now?” Casey asks, and Dan looks up at the screen. A plane has crashed in Pennsylvania. Dan listens to what is being reported, silent, anchored by Casey’s breathing on the other end of the line. 

Dan gets into work that morning and obviously it’s all anyone is talking about. Every TV in the studio has the news plastered on it. Everyone’s coming up to Dan asking him if friends and family are okay. It’s like no one knows how big New York City is. Dan overhears his coworkers talking about calling loved ones in Jersey, Queens, Brooklyn, to check up on them and he gets irrationally angry. 

It’s like the whole world is digging into their phone book to find anybody and anyone that they might have known in New York in their entire life. Anxiety bubbles up in his chest and he needs to step outside again. 

Dan wants to scream. Wants to say “Can you shut the fuck up? Someone who lives in Ditmars Steinway, Queens is going to be perfectly fine since that’s the complete other end of the island. Oh, and didn’t you know? Manhattan is an _island_.” But he doesn't. He realizes this is the way people cope. Hell, he called Casey this morning. But that’s because it was _Casey_ , and he just needed to hear his voice. Dan knew, objectively, that Casey would be fine. (He did. Probably.)

He calls Dana after his 12 p.m. rundown. She tells him they’re being preempted by the news. 

“How’s everybody holding up over there?” Dan asks. 

“All right, you know. As good as can be expected. It’s just hard to find the words, Danny.” 

“I know.” 

“I know someone who worked there. I haven't been able to get ahold of her.” 

“Shit, Dana, I’m sorry.” 

That’s the first he’s heard of someone knowing someone. And he realizes there will be more. That everyone he knows in New York could have someone they might’ve lost today and they don’t even know yet. It’s going to take weeks, maybe months, before everyone is identified. That’s what the news outlets are already saying. Dan can’t stop watching the footage, even as the anxiety gathers in his chest. 

Abby’s the only person that he knew that lives and works the closest to everything that happened. He called her after Casey. She was okay. 

But she could see the smoke from her building. She isn’t in an area in which they’re asking people to evacuate due to harmful inhalation, though. 

(“I think I’m going to need a session as soon as possible,” Dan said. 

Abby laughed and it sounded sad. “Yeah, my phone’s kind of been ringing off the hook today. When it actually is working.” 

Dan closed his eyes, exhaled. “You take care of yourself, okay?” 

“Thanks, Dan.”)

He calls his parents after hanging up with Dana, because he figures if there’s any commonality to find among them it’s through something terrible like this. 

Of course he’s wrong. 

Dam rests his head against the refrigerator in the empty breakroom. “There are millions, maybe billions, of Muslims in the world. This attack has nothing to do with practicing Islam or worshiping Allah. It’s a small sect that will now get a large platform.”

“Should’ve known you were one of those left wing Democrats.” 

Dan bangs his head against the fridge. “And you’re a right wing Republican. Now that we’ve categorized one another’s political leanings I don’t think there’s much left to say, Dad. Give Mom my love.” 

He hangs up before his dad can respond and (barely) refrains from throwing his cell across the room. 

He’s so tired, so goddamn tired of the talking to someone who is stubborn and set in his ways and won’t ever change.

Dan calls Casey. 

“Heard you’re not going on.”

“Yeah. Talked to Andy, too, he said they’re stopping production on Late Night. All the shows are.” 

They’re both quiet for a moment. “Talked to my dad earlier.” 

“Yeah?” 

Dan hums. “Went as well as you’d expect.” 

“I’m sorry.” 

“You never talk about your parents,” Dan says suddenly. It seems to surprise Casey as much as himself. 

“Don’t I?” 

“You really don’t. Like, general stuff, yeah. But -- I honestly don’t even know what your relationship with them is like. I’ve only ever met them a few times, at Charlie’s birthday parties and whatnot.” 

Casey’s quiet for a moment. “It’s… fine? I mean, my dad’s kind of -- cut from the same cloth as your dad. Generationally speaking.” 

“You mean he’s a bigoted white senior citizen.” 

“Uh… yeah, that’s a fair characterization. But -- I mean, we’ve still been able to have a relationship. It’s not like--” Casey cuts himself off.

_You and your dad_ , Dan finishes mentally for Casey, a flash of bitterness washing over him at Casey’s ability to just -- live and let live. Sure, the situations are different -- and Dan’s long made his peace with the way his dynamic with his dad is -- but at the same time he never really stood a chance. His dad made up his mind about Dan long before he’d ever truly had a reason to, and that knowledge is something he still doesn’t know what to do with. It’s something he’s spent countless hours on in therapy. 

“You never really talk about him, though.”

Casey sighs. “There isn’t much to say. He’s the kind of man that thought it was too _faggy_ that his seven year old son was taking gymnastics after school. And made me stop by the time I reached high school.”

“Sounds familiar,” Dan replies. “Except in high school I was blowing off basketball practice for dick.” 

“Dick who?” 

Dan shakes his head, laughing. “You’re so predictable, my young friend.” 

Casey clears his throat. “Yeah? So you were...getting a lot of…” Casey pauses so long that Dan is pretty sure he’s had an aneurysm.

“ _Dick_ , Casey. The word is dick. Penis. Cock.” 

Casey lets out a strangled noise. Dan laughs again, a little stiffer. “I forgot just how much of a pearl clutcher you are.”

“Hey. I slept with Sally Sasser every night for _months_. I’m not exactly a pearl clutcher.”

“Unless there was a Crying Game situation going on there, Casey, I’m failing to see the relevance in that anecdote.” 

“I’m just _saying_ , I’m not as sheltered as you like to think I am.” 

“Okay,” Dan placates. “Fair enough. Next you’ll be telling me about all the dick you got in high school yourself.” 

“No. I wasn’t getting _anything_ in high school, Danny. College, on the other hand…”

Dan’s eyes widen, his pulse racing. He nearly drops the phone. “What are you saying?” 

“I’m saying that…before Lisa, I myself may have touched a dick or two. While in my fraternity.” 

Casey mumbles the last sentence and Dan lets out a strangled laugh as he tries to get some air into his lungs again. 

“You realize that’s the biggest cliche in the book, right?” 

“I never claimed to be original.” 

“That you are not,” Dan agrees with feeling. “That you definitely are not. Wow. Huh.” 

“You surprised?” 

Dan’s laughter this time borders on hysterical. “Little surprised! Definitely a little surprised.” 

“It wasn’t -- It wasn’t anything... it was a handjob or two.” 

Dan makes another strangled sound. 

“ _What_?” 

“Just -- you know. The word. Handjob. Coming out of your mouth.”

“I’m not the _Queen_ , Danny.” 

“No, I think the Queen is racier than you.” 

Casey laughs. “Anyway…what were we talking about?” 

Dan laughs too. “I _think_ we were talking about our parents. Somehow it got dirty.” 

“I think that’s your fault,” says Casey, decisively. 

“Mmm, pretty sure it’s not.” 

“ _Pretty_ sure you’re the one who brought up dick.” 

“Dick who?” 

Casey laughs again. “And we are _back_ to the beginning, folks.” 

Dan feels like he’s having some outer body experience, still trying to comprehend the fact that _Casey McCall_ has had a gay experience. He really wants to ask why Casey never said one word about it when Dan came out to him.

“Okay, so, your dad: asshole but you still play nice. How about your mom?” 

Casey sighs. “My mom’s another story. She’s never really gotten over the divorce. Blames me. Blames me for a lot, actually.” 

“Oh,” Dan says quietly. “You’ve never said.” 

“Yeah. And -- it’s funny, because it’s not like she ever particularly cared for Lisa. They clashed a lot. They both have strong personalities and it was never a good match from the get-go. But my mother is a rather traditional Irish catholic. She comes from the mindset that you stick it out and make it work no matter what. That divorce is not an option. Hell, if it was she and my dad probably would’ve split up long ago. It’s not like they’re some model of happiness, you know?”

Dan lets all that sink in, surprised Casey’s even revealing so much. “Is that why you stuck it out as long as you did, Case?” he asks finally, voice quiet. 

“Maybe? Partly. A lot of it was Charlie, a lot of it was -- but yeah. Probably a good portion, yeah.”

“Thanks,” Dan says. “Thanks for telling me all of that.” 

Casey pauses. “I miss you. You know that?” 

Dan blinks. He never expected Casey to come right out and say those words, but then again it always was easier to say how you feel in times of tragedy and crisis. It was apparently also easy to admit to fraternity handjobs. 

“I miss you too, Casey,” Dan says with feeling. He bites his lip. “Wish I was there.”

“Yeah. Same.”

Dan barely remembers doing the show that night. All he remembers is thinking: I want to go back. I want to go back home. And realizing he absolutely still considers New York home. 

He waits until he’s back in his apartment to have his breakdown. 

Dan watches Casey’s show the first night it’s back on. It’s the first time he’s ever seen Casey get so emotional on the air. The broadcast is abbreviated; they’re still allowing more time for the news. They only stay on for a half an hour. Casey sends his thoughts and prayers out to the people who lost their loved ones. He talks about not letting a tragedy like this disrupt our enjoyment of life, of the things we love. He tells America that if it’s sports that they love, then they should continue to enjoy that, even now. And that if we as a nation let anyone take our joy away from us, or if we crawl under the covers and hide and don’t come out, then the terrorists succeeded. By the time Casey’s done, he’s got tears streaming down his face and so does Dan. He calls the studio as soon as Casey’s off the air. 

“You did great, man.” 

“Yeah?” Casey still sounds choked up. 

“Yeah, yeah, you were perfect.” 

So much better than Dan was. He doesn’t even compare. 

“Thanks, Danny.”

He says those two words like Dan’s praise means everything in the world to him. 

And Casey knows, is the thing; Casey knows that Dan is bi, Casey knows what another guy’s dick feels like in his hand. Does Casey know about the way Dan _feels_?

It’s possible Dan is more confused in L.A. than when he left New York, and it aches.  
__________________________

That feeling, that longing for New York, gets stronger as the weeks go by and the city begins to slowly rebuild. America braces for an impulsive war, which gives Dan even more anxiety. So he books a flight home for the second half of Hanukkah and into Christmas. Originally he wasn’t going to. Thought that he needed a little bit more of a clean break for now. But he needs to see Casey in the flesh, touch him, know that he’s real. He needs to see his friends-- the family that he made. 

Being back in New York for the holidays is good. Seeing Casey again is even better. It feels surreal, being in the city now. On the surface you can’t even tell anything is different. People are bustling about as usual. JFK is lit up for Christmas. It’s almost impossible to tell something has changed, except for the fact that Dan couldn’t bring his razor blade in his carry-on, the skyline is devoid of a significant piece, and there are now armed military guards in Penn Station. 

Dan stays at Casey’s apartment, on his couch. Casey said it was stupid for him to waste the money on a hotel room and Dan didn’t put up much of a fight. They take Charlie ice skating at Rockefeller Centre, even though he’s already gone twice this year with Lisa. 

It’s stupidly comfortable and familiar, and they share a smile over Charlie’s head while drinking hot chocolate. 

Dan’s heart clenches while a voice in the back of his head tells him nothing will ever feel as right as this. And then he has to make himself remember that they aren’t a family, they aren’t together, and this isn’t his life anymore. The reality is that Dan is sleeping on Casey’s couch, not in his bed, and Casey is currently telling Dan about the woman he’s gone on two dates with. 

“How about you?” Casey asks. His voice is tentative. “You seeing anyone?” 

Dan shakes his head. “Nah. Just kind of focusing on the work, you know?” 

Casey nods, peering at Dan a little curiously. He feels itchy under his skin. “Still not ready for something serious?” 

Dan shrugs, and doesn’t say anything. 

“You uh-- you haven’t really--” Casey stops, looks away. Charlie is back out on the ice rink and it’s just the two of them on the bench. 

“Spit it out, Casey.” 

“Nothing, just. I noticed you haven’t really… dated men. In a while.” 

Dan laughs shortly. “Yeah, well. It’s not the easiest thing, you know? In our line of work.” 

Casey nods again, like one of those bobbleheads. 

“Right, no. I know. I’m just saying -- you shouldn’t feel like you can’t, you know?” Casey sounds awkward and stuffy and Dan just isn’t up for this conversation. Not when the one guy he’d consider dating is sitting right next to him. 

“I know. Thanks, man. I appreciate it.” He claps Casey on the shoulder, hoping he’s effectively conveyed he’s done talking about this. 

Casey looks like he wants to say something else, but thankfully doesn’t. 

It begins to feel a little suffocating, staying over at Casey’s apartment. Waking up in the morning, having breakfast together, seeing Casey come out of the shower in just a towel. It feels all too like those times Casey stayed over his place during fights with Lisa. Dan hasn’t jerked off this much in months and feels tangled up inside, hates that so much of himself is still wrapped up in this desire.

He goes to the QVN holiday party as a general guest, since Casey’s plus one is Emily. Dan clenches his teeth at the way she hangs all over Casey. He feels ugly inside, angry. It reminds him of how it was with Sally, when Dan felt so out of control at the prospect of Casey sleeping with her. And how he let it consume him, until he threw himself at Rebecca, who was there and wasn’t Casey, but shared the admirable quality of not wanting Dan. 

Looking back on it now, he feels foolish over the way he’d thought things would be during Casey’s separation and impending divorce. He’d had all these fantasies. Late night movies with Casey, drinks at Anthony’s with Casey. Two single guys out on the town together. He’d thought maybe it was his turn to get highly concentrated doses of his best friend outside of work, now that Lisa couldn’t complain anymore. 

He honestly hadn’t expected Casey to actually start to notice Dana in a more serious way, without it being some means-to-no-apparent-end flirtation. Nor did he expect Casey to jump into casual sex. His bachelor-themed nights with Casey seemed to be a window that had closed before ever being opened.

He walks out to the balcony with his drink. Dana is there. It’s too cold to be outside, but Dan doesn’t really care. They sit in silence together, staring out at the city. 

“Have you told him yet?” Dana asks after a while.

“Told who what?”

“Told Casey that you have feelings for him,” Dana says simply. 

Dan jerks his head to look at her, eyes wide and lips parted. Dana just laughs. “Relax, cowboy. You told me after--after the Gordon and Sally thing. Remember?”

“No?”

“We got drunk in my office after a disappointing night at Anthony's.”

“I remember,” he says slowly, “that you had really terrible tequila in your office.”

“It _was_ terrible! And we moped over Casey.”

“I don’t recall moping.”

Dana lifts one perfectly groomed eyebrow. “You moped.”

Dan sniffs, sitting up a little straighter. “I angst. There’s a big difference, Dana.”

“You’re deflecting, Dan. You’re deliberately ignoring the point.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, you had a point?”

Dana rolls her eyes. “ _Have_ you told him?” 

Dan looks away, jaw tight. “No. No I haven’t.”

He feels Dana hand on his shoulder. “Maybe it’s time to. I mean… now more than ever, Dan, people should say—” 

Dan barks out a laugh. “I’m not about to confess my love in the wake of national tragedy, Dana. That’s the biggest cliche I’ve ever heard.”

Dana narrows her eyes. “Are you sure you aren’t just grasping at a convenient excuse not do do something that is long overdue?”

Dan sighs, dragging his hand over his face. “Nothing about Casey has ever been _convenient_ , Dana. When I met him, he was getting married, and there is literally no one I’ve been with since that makes me feel the way he does by just walking into a room.”

Dana squeezes his shoulder. “I used to feel the same way. But I moved on, Dan. I actually did find someone who made me feel that way. And more.”

Dan turns his head toward her. “And I’m happy for you. You and Sam are a great couple. I just don’t think that kind of happiness is waiting for me.”

“No, you just don’t think you deserve it. And deep down you don’t think you deserve Casey either, but let me tell you, he’s just as messed up as the rest of us. And there’s a light in him that’s gone out since you left, Danny.”

Dan squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m not about to tell him how I feel so he can try to convince himself it’s what he wants. Also? I live 3,000 miles away now. The entire thing would be a spectacular failure, even more so than the Dana and Casey saga.”

“I think you might be underestimating him. I think Casey knows what he wants.”

“I think he wants to fuck Emily right out of her cocktail dress,” Dan sneers. “But hey, what do I know?”

And before Dana can say anything, while her eyebrows are still drawing together in concern, Natalie comes onto the balcony and whisks Dana away to the dance floor. Casey doesn’t go home with Emily and it feels weird, like Dan’s inadvertently cockblocking, but he’s not _sorry_. 

“It probably won’t last,” Casey muses in the cab.

“No?” Dan asks, feigning interest. 

“It’s just. You know, sex. Guess it’s what I needed after…” He gestures to the city outside. 

Dan stares out the window, watching the lights of the place he fell in love with over five years ago pass him by. “Yeah, well. You always did like a good cliche.”

It feels good when Dan finally gets back to LA. Like he can breathe easy again, despite the smog. He feels disconnected from New York in a lot of ways he didn’t recognize until he was there again. Feels like he isn’t part of it anymore. The rebuilding that’s taking place has no room for him in it. He feels kind of disconnected from Casey, too. 

Dan has two sessions with Abby the week he gets back.  
__________________________

15\. **Summer 2002: The Scientist**

Dan isn’t happy in L.A., but then again he’s never truly been “happy,” regardless of location. It just isn’t a word that can be applied to him. _Content_ , maybe, at best. 

He’s been thinking a lot about Casey since Christmas. If something were to happen to Dan, would he regret never telling Casey? On some level he feels as though Casey’s always been aware, just like he was _aware_ with Dana. But passive enough to never bring it up. 

So Dan is doing a lot of thinking. About loss and love and Dana’s words at the holiday party, and Casey’s words about Dan not dating men. About Casey and handjobs. About Casey and casual sex with Emily. 

He’s still thinking when summer rolls around and it’s time for Casey’s visit. It’s good. It’s like it’s always been with them. Casey does let it slip that he’s no longer seeing Emily, though. Dan downs the rest of his shot after that revelation and looks away from the guy at the end of the bar who is totally his type and probably gives amazing head. 

On Casey’s fourth night there, he tells Dan they’re going out and it’s a surprise. 

“Is that what you were doing on my computer?” Dan asks, eyebrows drawn together. 

“Had to make sure it was still open. Come on, I called us a cab.”

Casey’s hand is warm on the back of his neck as he steers them out the door. 

Dan has a terrible feeling of deja vu as Casey gives the driver the address. 

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Casey says, a smile playing on his lips. 

Dan isn’t about to make a scene in a cab, not when he could possibly be recognized. So he says nothing at all the entire ride there and Casey doesn’t attempt conversation either. 

When they pull up, Dan’s suspicions are confirmed. 

Dan grits his teeth and asks again once they’re out of the cab. “What the hell are you doing, Casey?”

“What am I doing?” Casey echos innocently. 

Dan waves at the building in front of them. The very same club they went to in L.A. all those years ago. 

“Why would you bring me here?” 

“Because…” Casey looks flustered. “Because you haven’t really been getting out and we went last time. Um, together. Which was — good.” Casey stares at him like he’s trying to get Dan to truly _see_ him. Dan’s breath catches in his throat. “That was really good, Danny.“

“Yeah? Okay, let’s talk about that. Last time, I mean. Since both of us apparently have no foggy memories of that night.”

Casey’s mouth works. “Oh. Okay, you want to—to talk about—“

Dan rolls his eyes. “Jesus, you can’t even say it. My sexuality is not a joke, Casey.”

“Danny--”

“It isn’t some museum to tour.” 

“Jesus, no! I--”

“I can’t do this, Casey. I cannot do this with you right now.” It’s all too much. Casey taking him back here, the memories flooding back like they were yesterday. Casey _never_ bringing it up. Casey, who has _jerked guys off_. 

Dan walks off, but of course it isn’t that easy.

“Danny, wait!” 

Casey grabs him by the forearm, the two of them coming to a stop against the side of the building, away from the street traffic. 

Dan rounds on him, so Casey’s back is nearly against the brick of the building. “Why’d you bring me here, man? Huh? What did you think would happen?”

Casey’s eyes are wide and she shakes his head. “I-- I don’t know, I thought--” 

“What? That we’d go in there and you’d get drunk and start making out with my neck like it hasn’t been twelve years?” 

“Danny,” Casey says again, voice hushed. 

“It’s been twelve years,” Dan repeats, his voice close to shaking. “And this is the first time either of us have said that out loud.” 

“I tried to talk about it.”

“You tried to talk about it,” Dan repeats, voice flat. 

“I did,” Casey insists, eyes boring into Dan’s. “At Neiman’s.” 

Dan gaps. “You tried to talk about it in Neiman’s.” 

“Yes.”

“At Neiman’s,” Dan repeats pointedly. “A few days before our first show for Lone Star. While you were married with a kid and in a department store buying me a suit. That’s what you were doing that day.” 

Casey has the decency to look chagrined. “I never said I had good timing.” 

Dan scoffs, crossing his arms over his chest. “So you thought, what? What exactly were you expecting?”

“I don’t know.”

“You were married with a kid. You were respected enough to have already won awards and popular enough to get on Late Night’s radar. You’re telling me you would’ve given all of that up to try something with your very male best friend?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?”

Dan’s heart is about to beat out of his chest. “Fuck you. Fuck you, Casey, you don’t get to do that.”

“What?” Casey shouts, finally angry. It’s terribly satisfying. “Do what?”

“I’m calling an audible, that’s what. You don’t get to pretend now that _you_ brought it up back then and it's my fault I didn’t take it anywhere. As if you’re the one who’s been in unrequited love this whole time, which, by the way, _sucks_.”

“I--” Casey blinks, then shakes his head. “No. That isn't a fair call and I resent it.”

“If you had truly wanted to bring it up, Casey, you would have. You would’ve said ‘hey remember that time I licked your neck in a club in L.A.? Let’s break that down.’” 

“Right, because I'm always so good at talking about my feelings!”

“Then that’s on you, my friend.”

Casey glares at him but Dan stands firm, throwing his hands up in the air. “And I’m just going to say it: you _could’ve_ mentioned the handjobs! The handjobs are definitely a thing you could’ve mentioned.” 

Casey gapes at him. “You -- _what_?” 

Dan waves him off. “Forget it. S’nothing, right? What’s a handjob or two between frat boys when your best friend is coming out to you.” 

Casey’s eyes harden. “Oh, Jesus Christ, Danny, don’t crucify me for that, all right? What was I supposed to say? You’re telling me that it wouldn’t have come off as a ‘some of my best friends are gay’ if I’d dropped that particular tidbit then? I was making it about you, not me!” 

“That’s rare coming from you,” Dan replies coldly.

Casey flinches, then sags back against the brick. “Look -- I’m trying to — I was trying to make a gesture here. Tonight. To let you know how I feel. Obviously, it backfired.”

Dan’s heart pounds in his ears, his mind going a mile a minute. Casey can’t truly be saying what he’s -- saying. “A… gesture. That’s what this is? Because to me it looks like the card behind your back that you’ve been waiting to play.”

“No, Danny. It really isn’t.”

Dan ignores him. “Have you ever stopped to consider just how alike Dana and I are? We were both willing to wait around for years until it was convenient for you to throw down your ace in the hole.” 

Casey scoffs and pushes off the building, coming to stop right in front of Dan. “Convenient? Oh, please enlighten me as to how my timing right now is _convenient_?”

“I don’t know, man. But I do know that I cannot do this with you right now. Because you’re getting on that plane tomorrow and I’ll be here alone and just as fucked up as I was every single time I left L.A. back then.” 

“Jesus, Danny.”

Dan doesn’t look at him. Can’t look at him and say this. “Look, you’re my best friend and I love you, you know that. I wouldn’t change anything about these last twelve years. My feelings aren’t something I’m going to blame either of us for. But those kinds of feelings? They wear on you, man. That’s all I’m saying.”

Casey is quiet, too quiet. Dan still can’t look at him. They’re also standing way too close. Casey’s voice is soft when it finally comes.“And I’m saying that I feel the same way, so why can’t we…”

Dan takes a step back, “And _I’m_ saying I’m not so sure you do. I think you might be conflating fear after tragedy, or, whatever, fear about being _alone_ , with feelings you’re going to will yourself to have, stemming from some dumb moment twelve years ago.”

Casey stares at him. “Well, then you’re a fucking idiot.” 

“Then I’m a fucking idiot,” Dan echoes. 

“Dan—” Casey starts and takes a step closer.

Dan holds his hands up, stopping the movement. “Here’s what's going to happen: you’re going to leave. You’re gonna get on a plane and go back to New York and I’m going back to my apartment here. And this is how it has to be.” 

“Why is that how it has to be?”

“Do you really know what you’re offering here, Casey?” Dan says. He’s so tired. He looks off to the side again. “Do you really know what you’re saying? Because, for me... I want you in my bed so badly that I can barely put it into words. That’s where I’m at.”

He hears Casey’s sharp intake of breath. When he looks over again Casey’s eyes are fixed on him. 

“We can -- we can do that,” Casey says, a little breathless. 

For years Dan has wanted to be the focus of Casey’s desire. It’s as intense and devastating as he imagined. 

Dan shakes his head. “No. We can’t. Sure, we might be able to, physically. But I can’t do that with you and then have you leave. And that’s where _we’re_ at right now. I’m here and you’re there.”

“Yeah, because of _you_ ,” Casey points out. “This is what you wanted.”

“Yeah,” Dan agrees. “This is what I wanted. And even if you’d told me this was on the table -- this thing that I’ve wanted from you for longer than you even know -- before I’d left, I still would’ve had to do this. Just like I did with Rebecca. And it doesn’t feel like it’s complete yet. I’m not sure when it's going to. But not yet, Casey.”

“So this is a ‘not now’ or a ‘not ever’?”

Dan bites his lip. “This is a…I need to think about some things.”

“Okay, well, can I give you this to think about? I’ve been looking at my life recently and all I know is I want you in it.”

“You want your partner. You miss our show.”

Casey’s jaw clenches. “No, I want _you_. Stop fucking telling me how I feel, Danny. I’d do the show with Bobbi forever if I could still have you.” He pauses, takes a breath. “I need you.”

It’s taking every ounce of will that Dan has to not throw himself at Casey. He forces himself to think clearly. “Right, okay. And before this you needed casual sex with Emily. And before _that_ you needed Dana, and before that you needed Sally, and before that you needed Lisa so bad you let her walk all over you for fifteen years. You see how it’s difficult to believe that now _I’m_ what you really need?”

Casey steps in close and cups the side of Dan’s face with one hand. Dan freezes. “I know it’s difficult for you to believe you’re worth anyone’s time. I know you think you don’t deserve to be happy. I’m telling you you’re worth it. You’ve always been worth it, Danny.”

Dan quivers into the touch, Casey’s words seeping into his bones and landing in the vicinity of his heart. He forces his legs to move and steps away, breaking the touch. “I can’t ... fuck, I can’t handle this right now.”

He watches Casey lean back against the building again, arms hanging awkwardly at his sides. “But you haven’t — I mean, you still—”

He waves between them and Dan laughs humorously. “Yeah, Casey. ‘I still.’ Kind of part of my genetic makeup at this point.”

Despite the fact that the elephant in the room has been addressed, it still feels like they’re walking on eggshells around each other. And Dan put himself out there, the love and lust, expecting Casey to freak out; expecting Casey to clam up and run.

He still isn’t sure if he’s happy or disappointed that Casey took it so well.  
__________________________

“Am I just self-sabotaging now?” Dan asks Abby over the phone the next day, after spending nearly all of it in bed, watching old tapes of his and Casey’s show. Casey leaving was awkward. Dans been trying not to replay it constantly in his head. “He offered me everything I’ve ever wanted on a silver platter and I turned it down.” 

“Only you can answer that question, Dan.” 

“I told him I didn’t believe his feelings for me.” 

“Isn’t that for him to decide?”

Dan snorts. “He isn’t of sound mind, trust me.” 

“What’s one of the first things I said when you began treatment with me?” 

Dan frowns. “That an appointment cancelled with less than 24 hours notice will incur a $25.00 fee?”

“After that.”

“Abby…”

“How effective is trying to control your feelings?”

“It’s not.”

“How about your thoughts?”

“Also no.”

“Can you control anyone else’s thoughts or feelings?”

“No.”

“And what’s the best way to know what other people are thinking and feeling?”

“...Ask them.”

“And it sounds like Casey told you, didn’t he? So why are you so sure he can’t be telling you the truth?”

Dan sighs. “Look. It’s hard to believe this is really what he wants and not some kind of post-U.S. tragedy mid-life gay crisis.”

“You’re reaching, Dan.” 

“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before from someone I’m _not_ paying. Tell me -- tell me something therapist-y.” 

“Therapist-y?” she says dryly. 

“Tell me if I’m making the dumbest move of my life by not jumping on a plane and living happily ever after with Casey fucking McCall.”

“Tell me if _you_ think that.”

“Abby, for God’s sake, I’m asking for your _opinion_ here. I know you’ve got one.”

“I think not giving everything up that you’re trying to build, even for the man of your dreams, is not stupid. I think you’re putting other things first right now, Dan, in an attempt to find some personal happiness. Even though I know that’s a word you don’t necessarily apply to yourself.”

“Yeah, ain’t that the truth,” remarks Dan, before pausing. “Casey says he thinks _I_ think I don’t deserve to be happy.” 

“And what do you think?” 

Dan sighs, scratching at the back of his head from where it’s tilted back against the couch. “I think he’s probably onto something there.” 

“So let’s discuss that. You think you don’t deserve to be happy, Dan. You feel guilty accepting love. But what _would_ make you happy, Dan? If you allowed yourself to have it. Truly, deep down, is there anything that would make you happy?”

Dan thinks about that for a moment. “I don’t know. I used to think certain things would make me happy. I used to think being on that list would make me happy, would give me value. I used to think giving money to various charities would make me a good person. I used to think winning an award for broadcasting would make me happy, but all that would be is something to throw in my father’s face and say ‘here, this is what your son has accomplished, I guess he isn’t as much of a fuckup as you thought.’”

“So your idea of happiness is centered around validation, absolution, and proving yourself?” 

Dan exhales. “Apparently.” 

“And so you came to L.A. to prove to yourself you can do it without Casey. And you have. You’ve done that. You know you’ve done that. Does it feel good?”

“It does, yeah.”

“Good. Great. And are you happy yet, Dan?” 

Dan lets out a long, steadying breath. “No. I’m really fucking not.” 

“Okay. So, what is something -- now -- that you could do for yourself? What is something that would give _you_ joy, that isn’t centered around validation?” 

Dan thinks about this for a moment, and flashes of images flitter across his eyes, memories along with things that have never happened. Brief and with no true connection, except they surround one person: mornings with Casey, laughing in bed with Casey. Taking Charlie to a museum with Casey. Everything always comes back to one thing: Casey, Casey, Casey. 

Dan takes a deep breath and exhales again. “Shit,” he whispers.

Abby’s laughter is light over the line. “Sounds like an epiphany.”

“Yeah, and I just sent my _epiphany_ back on a plane, telling him I wasn’t -- done here yet and I didn’t believe him. What the hell am I supposed to do now?”

“Figure it out, Dan. Figure out a balance. Figure out if your self-validation is enough. If you can truly go back to New York and feel proud of what you accomplished and that you’re your own person. And that your value is not tied up in any one person. It’s yours. And if you want to stay out here, stay out here. Long distance relationships exist. But more importantly, figure out a way to let Casey be in love with you.” 

“This is why I pay you the big bucks,” Dan says, smiling shakily into the phone as his heart races.

He’s pretty sure he knows the answer to the self validation question. Now he just has to figure out… everything else.  
__________________________

16\. **Fall 2002: Spin**

It takes a few months to get back to “them.” It isn’t as weird as it probably should be. But then again it wasn’t that weird for Casey when he and Dana were constantly talking about their feelings (or non-feelings) to one another without doing anything _about_ it. 

And even after a few months they’re not _truly_ back to “them”, because a door has been opened and now one of them just needs to walk through it. Well, _Dan_ probably needs to walk through it, seeing how he kind of shot Casey -- the love of his life -- down. Thirty-three years old and still fucked up as all hell, that’s Dan. 

He believes Casey. He’s still a little pissed at him, but he believes he truly meant what he said. Which is terrifying as all fucking hell, honestly. Now Dan just needed an opening. A sign. Something. 

“So it’s probably just gonna be selections from the sub-pool until a true search can get underway,” Casey says through the phone one Saturday morning in November. 

Dan’s ears perk up. “What?” 

“Do you not listen when I speak?” 

“Not always,” Dan admits. “Sometimes you rant about the Bush Administration and it gives me anxiety.” 

Casey pauses. “Fair enough. I was telling you about Bobbi giving her notice. She’s moving to Florida with her fiancé.” 

Dan blinks. “She has a boyfriend?” 

“No, she has a fiancé, she’s getting married. Do you _seriously_ not listen to me?” 

“It varies.” The wheels in his head start spinning. This is it. _This_ is the sign. “When is her last show?” 

“Just before Christmas. They’re gonna put out an ad, but everyone’s got vacation time in the upcoming months between the holidays so nothing will probably be decided before New Year’s. I’m taking the week of Christmas off anyway. So after New Year’s I’ll be with whomever.” 

“Huh,” Dan says. 

“Were you, uh, still going to come out?”

It had been the plan, originally. Dan coming out mid-December, staying through New Year’s. Hanukkah ends early this year, so Dan wouldn’t be in New York for it, but he’d be able to catch the office holiday party. They were going to take Charlie ice skating again too. It had been the plan they hadn’t revised since summer. 

“Um, yeah. If that’s still cool.” Dan would have -- a lot of things to get in order, but Casey didn’t need to know that right now. 

“Of course it is, Danny.” Casey’s voice is soft, maybe a little wistful. He feels a vicious thrill at that. It might be terrible of him, but it’s kind of nice to know that Casey might be pining. After all, Dan’s had more than his fair share. 

“I’ll be there.” 

They say goodbye and Dan pulls out a notebook and pen. He has a lot to do.  
__________________________

Dana and Isaac are ecstatic about the idea. Dan’s current boss is… less than ecstatic. No one is telling Natalie because she’ll spill the beans. Bobbi said, “It’s about time you pulled your head out of her ass,” so Dan can only _imagine_ what kind of conversations she and Casey have been having lately. Leave it to Casey: he starts opening up more about his personal life and it’s to Bobbi of all people.

Dan is nervous as all fuck in the weeks leading up to his New York trip. He’s packing his stuff up before he goes and is going to have to come back anyway for both his farewell show and to finish arranging for his things to be shipped. 

It feels good to be doing this without telling Casey. Because no matter what happens between them, Dan’s doing this because _he_ wants to. He wants his job back, he wants to be back in New York. He was gone for two and a half years and learned a few things about himself. He could stand on his own two feet. He could be a face in broadcasting without Casey on his left. But, most importantly, he’d learned he didn’t want to be anywhere Casey was not. It wasn’t like when he was a kid and he felt like some puppy, following Casey around. 

This time, Dan had other options on the horizon, but he was still choosing Casey. They would finally be equals in this, partners for real. 

(Partners. Maybe--and that was worth hoping for, too.)  
__________________________

17\. **Winter 2002: Do You Realize??**

When Dan gets to New York he doesn’t tell Casey right away about the things he’s been setting in motion since November. He just needs to find the right moment. As a result, there are a lot of private conversations between those “in the know.” There’s also a lot of Casey shooting Dan puzzled looks every time he nearly walks in on a conversation at the studio, where Dan’s been hanging around as though he never left the place. 

He has a hushed conversion with Dana at the QVN holiday party which is equal parts “I can’t believe you’re really doing this” and “Did you notice you’re his plus one this time?”

Dan did notice, he just hadn’t wanted to get his hopes up. “Let’s slow down, all right? Nothing has happened yet.”

“I used to be jealous of you,” Dana says a little too loudly. It’s her “I’m very drunk” voice.” Dan’s kind of missed it. Nevertheless, he steers her toward the currently empty balcony, which has apparently become their spot. 

“That’s ridiculous. You had no reason to be jealous of me.” 

“I was, though. You were his shiny new toy back in L.A. and he was enamored.”

Dan snorts. “He was not _enamored_.”

“He was absolutely enamored. He’d talk about you all the time.”

Dan blinks out at the skyline, his grip tight on the banister. “Seriously?”

“Yep,” Dana says popping the ‘p’. “I don’t think he understood anything he was feeling back then. But I could tell there was something.”

“I was jealous of you too, if we’re telling secrets now.”

“Yeah?”

“You had five years more of history with him. Of course I was.”

Dana comes to stand next to him, their shoulders brushing. “We are petty, jealous people, Dan.” 

“Yes, we are.”

“It’s kind of gross.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I think you’d be good together,” Dana says abruptly. 

Dan peers over at her. “Yeah?” 

She nods. “I know you don’t need my blessing or anything, but I think you’d be good. Casey and me, that wasn’t something that should have been taken out of the ‘what if’ category. But you two -- it really should be.”

“Thank you,” he manages, the words a little choked. 

“You’re a good man, Daniel.” 

Dan chuckles. “I appreciate that.” 

“If you hurt him I’ll kill you.” Dana smiles sweetly. 

Dan blinks. “Wow, that ‘good man’ thing didn’t last very long now, did it?” 

Dana squeezes his shoulder. “No, you’re still a good man. Better than Casey, honestly. But I still need to say that.” 

Dan nods seriously and covers her hand with his. “I know. And I have no intention of hurting him and will do everything in my power not to.” 

“Good.” 

Dan shakes his head, rueful laugh escaping. “You realize we’re not even together yet. He could very well say ‘thanks but no thanks, you missed your chance there, buddy boy.’” 

Dana scoffs. “One, it is debatable as to whether Casey would ever say ‘buddy boy’. Two, that man is head over heels, Danny. You should hear the way he talks about you before shows when he thinks no one’s really listening.” 

Dan’s pulse races. “I hope you’re right,” he murmurs. 

“I’m always right.” 

“And thank you for not telling Natalie still. I think this is a record for you.” 

“I’m growing as a person.” Dana nods. “Now, what’s your plan?” 

Dan sighs and turns to lean back against the balcony. “I don’t really have one?” 

Dana groans. “You need a _plan_ , Daniel.” 

“Do I really, though?” Dan says on a laugh. “Plans don’t seem to work out too well around these parts.” 

“Touche. But you should still have _something_ in mind.” 

“I do,” Dan assures her. “And Casey has now been staring at us through the window for at least the last minute.” 

Dana whips around to look inside. “He’s squinting.” 

“That he is.” 

“That means he’s thinking hard and also puzzled.” 

“I’m well aware.” 

Dana stands up straighter. “We should go inside.” 

Dan freezes, nervous for the first time all evening. He was going to do this. He was really going to do this.

“Dana,” he mutters through suddenly numb lips. “What if--”

“Shut up, Dan. You’re going to get your happy ending.” 

Dan smiles down at her. “Thanks.” 

“C’mon, let’s go in before he has a coronary.” 

Dan laughs and follows her back inside. 

Sure enough, Casey takes a few long strides to greet them in the middle of the room. “You two were out there for a while.” 

“It’s a lovely evening, Casey,” Dana says innocently. 

“You’re plotting something. There’s a plot afoot.” 

Now it’s Dan’s turn to squint. “Afoot, Casey? Really?” 

“There’s no plot,” sighs Dana. “Dan, is there a plot?” 

Dan holds up the hand that doesn’t have a drink in it. “No plots here.” 

Casey’s squinting increases, if possible. “I don’t believe either of you.” 

“That hurts my soul, Casey,” Dan says, giving him the kicked puppy expression. 

Casey rolls his eyes. “I’ll get it out of Natalie.” 

Dana giggles. “Okay, you do that.” 

With one last look between them Casey’s off and Dan watches him go, not so subtly checking out his ass. He looks damn good tonight. Black jeans that are tight in all the right places and a deep red sweater that shouldn’t work with his pale complexion but absolutely does. 

...Someone must have helped him pick it out. Probably Natalie.

Dan hangs out in the corner and shoots the shit with Jeremy until Casey finds him again. 

“Natalie says there is no plot.” 

“Well, Natalie would be the one to know,” Dan replies, hiding his grin in his drink. 

“I concur with that,” says Jeremy before walking off, tossing Dan a wink that is in no way, shape, or form discreet. Dear lord, did _everyone_ know?

Casey hums. “This is all too reminiscent of when I was waiting to hear from Late Night. The secret conversations, the hushed phone calls.”

Dan rolls his eyes.

“Danny,” Casey says seriously. “Is someone getting a Late Night gig?” 

Dan barks out a laugh. “Yes, Casey. You’ve cracked the code.” 

“I hate you,” Casey mutters. 

“I’m sure you do,” Dan agrees happily. Then he leans back against the piano in the room that no one is playing and tries not to focus on the fact that Casey is pressed right up against him, their shoulders and arms brushing. 

Dan takes a deep breath. “Hey, Case?” 

He sees Casey turn out of his peripheral. “Yeah?” 

“Come back to my hotel after the party?” 

Dan hears a surprised intake of breath but can’t make himself look over at Casey, staring instead at Dana and Sam dancing. 

Casey’s quiet for so long that Dan begins to freak out. “I’d like that,” he finally says. 

Dan breathes again. “I’ve, uh, got your gift there.” 

“Oh,” Casey replies and he sounds -- disappointed. Dan’s already done something wrong here. “Okay, yeah. Cool.”

“Cool,” Dan repeats dully. Suddenly, he isn’t so sure about this anymore. Sam is dipping Dana while she laughs brightly. Dan wonders if Dana was right, if he’ll ever truly have that. 

Only a few more hours and he’ll know for sure. 

Dan downs the rest of his drink and leaves Casey there in favor of the bar.  
__________________________

Dan wishes he were well and truly drunk for this, but sadly he isn’t. What he is is hyper-aware of Casey. From the cab ride to the way he followed Dan closely to the elevator, something is happening here. There’s something in the air and Dan’s entire body is thrumming. Casey looks over at him from where he’s leaning back against the elevator wall, eyes half-lidded and cheeks a little red from the cold. Dan misses the cold. He remembers he no longer has to anymore. 

“Do you want a drink?” Dan asks as they enter his hotel room. 

“Water would be good.” 

Dan nods and heads for the mini-fridge where he retrieves two bottles. When he turns back around Casey’s standing by the window, profile lit by the lights from the city. Dan’s breath catches in his chest. 

Casey turns his head slowly, smiling softly when his eyes meet Dan’s. 

“I quit,” Dan blurts out. 

Casey turns around fully and then stares at him blankly. “Excuse me?” 

“I quit. I quit my job. They’ve been looking for Bobbi’s replacement, like you said, and I tossed my hat into the ring.” 

“You tossed your hat in the ring.” 

“I tossed my metaphorical hat in the ring, yes.” 

Casey blinks. “You… did not tell me that.” 

“Well, no. I’m telling you now.” 

“You’re telling me now.” 

“That’s what I said, Casey.” Dan shifts his weight from one leg to the other. 

“And you… got the job.” 

Dan laughs, stepping up to Casey to hand off the water. “Of course I got the job.” 

“Plotting,” Casey mutters. “I fucking knew it.” 

Dan rolls his eyes. “Yep, you knew it, Agatha Christie.” 

Casey throws the water bottle on the couch. “Danny, what -- what exactly are you saying here?” 

Dan sighs. He walks over to the dresser where he stashed the gift. When he turns back around his hands are shaking. “I’m saying that this is my grand gesture.”

Casey blinks again, mouth working. He looks from Dan’s face to the package in his hand. “This as in the moving three thousand miles across the country or this as in the present in your hand?”

“Both. Although the moving thing is also for me. This, though -- this is just for you.” Dan holds it out, but Casey just stares.

“Just for me,” Casey murmurs. 

“Open it.” His hands shake even more as Casey reaches out for it. 

“It’s a mix,” Dan says quickly, before Casey even has the wrapping fully off. “Like, a random sampling of what my tapes would have looked like over the years if I continued to make them. Some songs that made me think of you. Us. Some that made me think of myself; Sam. And yes, Tom Waits is on there and you’re just going to have to fucking deal.” 

Dan knows he’s rambling. Casey is staring at the CD, turning it over slowly to see the tracklist. 

“I tried to do a song for each year, but I cheated some. So… there’s uh, fourteen tracks to encapsulate the last eight years of my life. Of which you’ve been a part and then some. I compromised my nostalgic roots and burned you a CD since you don’t own a cassette player. I never want to do that again and I hate Napster. Um, are you gonna say something or do you want me to keep talking? Because I can keep talking, Casey.” 

Casey laughs. His head is lowered and Dan can’t read his expression. Then he’s pulling a tape seemingly out of nowhere. It’s wrapped but it’s absolutely the unmistakable shape of a cassette. “I made this for you. Happy Hanukkah.” 

“But you don’t own a cassette player,” Dan mumbles as he flips the gift over in his hand.

“I do now,” Casey shrugs. 

Dan opens it and yep, it was definitely a mixtape. “How’d you even figure out how to do this? I had to hook up your DVD player.” 

“Charlie.” 

“I knew that boy would be the brightest of the McCall men.”

Casey laughs and it sounds nervous. “That’s, uh, how I feel about you.” 

Dan reads the tracklist, written in Casey’s perfect handwriting. “This is… terrible, Casey.” 

“Thank you very much.” 

“No, seriously, this is awful,” Dan says, the corner of his mouth twitching as he looks between Casey and tape. “I mean, Bryan Adams? Whitney Houston? _Celine Dion_? Casey, what did you do, a Yahoo search for sappiest movie love songs of all-time?” 

“Okay, one: it was an Ask Jeeves search. And two: it wasn’t necessarily movie themed, it just turns out a high concentration of sappy love songs are penned for the silver screen.” 

Dan laughs. “I’m not even going make fun of you over the fact that your go-to search engine is _Ask Jeeves_ \-- although please note it’s taking all my willpower not to -- and instead I’m just going to call you a lunatic because that’s what you are.”

“I sincerely appreciate that.” 

Dan laughs again, unable to keep it from bubbling up in his chest. “Oh my god, this mix, Casey. I adore your ridiculous ass.” 

“Hey now, my ass is not ridiculous. Or so I’ve been told.” 

Dan bites back a groan at the idiocy and its ramifications. This is Casey flirting. This is Casey flirting _badly_ with _him_.

“I can’t believe you did this.” Dan has never received a mix from anyone, ever. He doesn’t even care that it’s filled with the cheesiest love songs to ever exist. (If it’s secretly kind of touching, that’s his business.)

“Yes, well. _My_ grand gesture and all that.”

Dan laughs, waving the tape at him. “You kind of stole my thunder a little.” 

“Well, I guess we must be made for each other, then.” 

Dan gulps, his throat suddenly too tight. “Yeah...I guess so.” 

“I was going to tell you we could make this work if you wanted to, do the long distance thing, but it looks like that part of my speech is no longer necessary.” 

“Looks like it.” It’s awkward all of a sudden. They’ve once again said things without truly declaring them.

Dan is about to ask -- something, anything. Maybe utter a pathetic, _So does this mean we’re boyfriends now and if so, when I can start kissing you?_ but Casey beats him to it. 

“So, where are you thinking of living?” Casey asks. 

That... really isn’t the conversation topic Dan was expecting at this moment. It feels anticlimactic at best. Dan reels in his heart and clears his throat. 

“Not really sure yet,” he replies. 

Casey’s quiet for a moment and he looks nervous again. Dan tilts his head quizzically. 

“May I suggest… something in the area of my apartment?” Casey finally says. 

Dan lets go of the reins on his heart. 

“You may suggest that,” Dan responds, slowly smiling. 

“You know I’d ask you to move in with me if I thought either of us could pull that off, don’t you?” 

“I know you’re just ridiculous enough to suggest that, considering the fact that we haven’t exactly made this official yet.” 

“Official?” Casey makes a face. “Do I need to give you a promise ring, Danny? My letterman’s jacket?” 

Dan shakes his head in exasperation. “Maybe you can start with saying how you feel.” 

He watches as Casey swallows hard. “That’s what the mix is for. It’s themed and everything.” 

“I’d like to hear it from you and not Whitney, if you don’t mind.” 

“Okay,” Casey says, squaring his shoulders. “I… I think I’ve been falling in love with you since I met you, Danny. And I think you should stay in my apartment until you find a place of your own.” 

Dan feels flummoxed. “You, uh. You could possibly twist my arm on that.” 

Casey frowns. “That’s all you have to say?” 

“You know how I feel about you, Casey,” he says softly, looking down at his feet 

Suddenly there’s a hand on his shoulder and another on the nape of his neck. Dan looks up, breathing gone rapid from just those two touches and Casey’s proximity. 

“Wanna hear you say it, though,” Casey murmurs, lips curved in that patent smirk that Dan wishes he could hate. 

Dan takes a deep breath. “I love you more than Tom Waits.” 

Casey’s startled into a laugh and Dan begins to smile as well. “Ah, the seven words every man longs to hear.” 

They smile dumbly at each other, Dan’s pulse going a mile a minute. He wants to put his hands on Casey, but he’s honestly not sure if he’ll evaporate into thin air if he does.

“What about Charlie? You ready for that?” 

“Charlie’s old enough to learn a few new things about his old man. Besides, that kid loves you.” 

“I love him, too.” Dan says, before wincing. “What about _Lisa_?” 

Casey chuckles, his grip tightening on Dan’s shoulder. “Lisa… well, Lisa already accused me of having an affair with you once, so. I doubt it’ll be much of a shock.”

“ _What?_ ”

Casey laughs again, but this time it’s steeped in bitterness. “Yeah. In Dallas, when I was spending all those nights on your couch.”

“Jesus Christ, Casey.” 

“Yep. And after that, when I didn’t take Late Night, she doubled down.” 

“I’m so sorry, man.” Dan pauses. “Wait a minute. Is that why -- is _that_ why you brought up L.A. that day in Neiman’s?” 

Casey pauses for a moment. “Well. I guess I figured… if I was getting accused anyway…”

Dan shakes his head as Casey trails off. “There was no way I was gonna help you cheat on your wife, man. I’m just not built that way.”

Casey nods. “No, I know. Let’s be honest, neither am I. And if you hadn’t pushed me away that night in L.A., I probably would’ve stopped it myself. It was just -- a thought. I know I wasn’t ready to leave her at that point. But I was thinking about you in Dallas, Dan. I was thinking about you a lot back then.” 

Dan smiles shakily, then pauses. “You were thinking about Dana a lot, too.” Because no matter how crazy in love he is with this guy, he’s not about to let Casey rewrite history. 

Casey has the good nature to look chagrined. “Yeah. You’re right, I was.” 

“It’s okay, man. Feelings are... complicated.” 

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Casey says with a half-smile. “Look, Danny…I need to say -- I need to say that I handled everything wrong over the summer. I shouldn’t have made you think I that I would have done things differently back then. Even if I wanted to, I think we both know I wouldn’t have. For a lot of reasons. Charlie, the show…” 

“I know, man.” 

“No, but seriously, I need you to really _know_. You weren’t some consolation prize, back with Late Night. I chose you. And you aren’t a consolation prize now. There is no one I want right now, right here, except for you. I need you to know you aren’t some last resort, Danny. You -- us -- I think I’ve always felt, in the back of my mind, that we’d get here. Eventually, you know? I wasn’t lying before. I’ve been falling for you for a really long time. I just had no idea how we were gonna get from point A to point B. Or when.”

Dan is trying very hard right now not to cry, because god dammit he is _not_ going to have Casey McCall make him cry. 

“Casey,” says Dan, fond exasperation heavy in those two syllables. “Would you please shut the fuck up and kiss me already?”

Casey laughs, unsteady. “I think I can do that.” He lifts a hand to Dan’s face and Dan looks up, meeting his eyes. 

“This is weird, isn’t it?” Casey whispers, thumb sweeping across Dan’s cheek. 

“A little bit,” Dan whispers back.

Casey’s thumb traces over his bottom lip. “Enough for me to stop?” 

“Don’t you dare.” 

Casey’s mouth on his is warmth and familiarity. It’s years of history culminating with this new language and the second that Dan sinks into it he knows he never wants to emerge again. 

Casey’s other hand goes to cradle the back of his neck, while Dan’s arms finally slide around his back. Casey kisses him harder, their lips parting at the same time. Dan’s tongue inches out to run along Casey’s bottom lip, pulling a low moan from his throat. It’s possibly the sexiest sound Dan’s ever heard and he wants to replicate it as many times as humanly possible. 

Casey’s tongue slides into his mouth and then it’s Dan’s turn to moan. Somehow, they’ve ended up pressed together from hips to chest, kisses growing more desperate. 

“Fuck.” Dan breaks off, breathing hard into the curve of Casy’s neck. “Shit, you have no idea how bad I want you.” 

“Enough to be grammatically incorrect.” Casey replies. His is voice unsteady, though. 

_I did that_ , Dan thinks. 

“Grammar hardly seem relevant right now.” To emphasize his point he rolls his hips against Casey, making him gasp. 

“Dan.” 

“Yeah,” Dan whispers, before attacking Casey’s mouth again. It’s open and wet from the get-go this time, the kisses deep and all-consuming. Casey kisses him like he wants to crawl inside.

Dan runs his hands down Casey’s back, up his sides. Casey shivers under his touch. He breaks away from Dan’s mouth to nip at his jaw and kiss his way down Dan’s neck. 

Dan moans, fingers tightening on Casey’s waist. “My mix for you. It isn’t very romantic. It’s mostly just -- me.”

“That’s perfect,” Casey whispers, sucking a hickey into Dan’s neck. “That’s everything.” 

Dan laughs, a little hysterical, biting his nails into Casey’s skin. “I can’t handle you.” 

Casey kisses him again, hands on the base of Dan’s neck, big and overwhelming. 

Dan gasps into his mouth, sucking hard on Casey’s tongue before pulling back again. “Full disclosure: I’m not sure I’ve ever been this nervous at the prospect of sex.” 

Casey laughs, a low, sexy sound. _God_. “Never?” His mouth trails over Dan’s jaw as he speaks, causing Dan to tremble. “Not even your first time?” 

Dan snorts. “Dude, my first time I was high as a kite and finally making it with Cathy Miller. I was Mr. Smooth.” 

Casey laughs again, mouth on the hollow of Dan’s throat now. “I’m sure you were.” 

He ignores Casey’s the obvious challenge in Casey’s voice and pulls back, looking him square in the eye. “I’m just saying -- this is fourteen years of build-up here, Casey. If I lose it before we even start you are not allowed to judge me.” 

“Oh, I will most certainly judge you,” Casey replies, eyes shining with mirth. “And mock you. I might even chortle.” 

Dan steps back out of their embrace to cross his arms over his chest. “You will not chortle.” 

Casey raises an eyebrow. “You gonna stop me?” 

This time, Dan does rise to the challenge, stepping in close again and kissing that smug grin off Casey McCall’s face. 

It’s when Casey is kissing his way down Dan’s neck again, licking at his overheated skin while Dan moans, “Oh god, _Casey_ ,” that his overactive mind comes back online. 

“What’s the endearment situation going to be?” Dan gasps. 

Casey pulls away to look at him, which _so_ was not Dan’s plan. “There’s an endearment situation?”

Dan licks at his over-sensitive lips, not missing the way Casey’s gaze follows the action. “There very well may be if you want to use endearments.”

“Okay,” Casey says slowly. “Are you opposed?”

“Not as rule, no, But I’ve known you for —- fourteen years Casey, and I dunno, I'm thinking it might get a little odd.”

Casey nods sagely. “Odd if I call you ‘baby’.”

“Yeah,” Dan agrees before hearing what Casey actually said. His eyes jerk up, pupils wide. “Wait, what? No. I mean — excuse me?”

“You’re right,” Casey shrugs before leaning in close to Dan’s ear. “It would probably be weird to moan ‘baby’ while you’ll fucking me.” His voice is low, serious, and insanely sexy. 

Dan chokes on nothing and pulls Casey back by his shoulders. “Okay, what the hell has gotten into you?”

“You, hopefully.”

Dan stares at him before doubling over in laughter. 

Casey looks on, unimpressed. “Wow. Seriously? I’ve been watching gay porn in preparation for this. That was grade A material there.”

Dan meets his gaze, wiping his eyes. “Of course you have. Did you take notes?”

“No!”

Dan raises an eyebrow. 

“Okay, maybe a little.”

Dan is still smiling, but his stomach feels tight now. “And you, uh, want to do it the way you just said?”

Casey flushes even as he nods. “Yeah, I mean. If you do that. And if you like to do it that way.”

Dan nods, jerkily. “I do indeed do that and while I prefer, um, bottoming, the thought of doing that to you...”

Dan trails off as they trade heated gazes, his dick twitching in his pants. He sucks in a breath. “This is so weird.”

“Why?” Casey murmurs and it sounds like liquid sex. Dan’s body wants him naked yesterday, but his mind is another story. 

“We didn’t exactly discuss our sex lives in vivid detail in the time we’ve known each other. It’s a little surreal telling you these things.” 

“So? Time to embrace a new us, Danny.”

The corners of Dan’s mouth twitch upward. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, the new us that talks graphically about sex. And me telling you how I really want to call you baby while you fuck me. And vice versa.”

“Fuck, Casey…”

“Exactly,” Casey grins. 

“The fact that you’ve now used two terrible puns in a sexual situation, all while trying to help me not freak out, is seriously making me reconsider sleeping with you altogether.”

Casey steps in even closer than before if possible, his entire body aligning along Dan’s. ”Somehow I doubt that,” Casey whispers, licking one slow stripe up Dan’s neck. 

“God,” Dan groans. He fists one hand in Casey’s shirt and tangles the other in his hair. “You’re going to be even more insufferable after you make me come, aren’t you?”

He hears a stutter of breath and feels Casey’s smile form against his skin. “It’s entirely possible.”

Dan shivers. 

“Danny?”

“Mmm?” Casey’s mouth is very distracting on a good day. It’s even more so when it’s right up against Dan’s neck. 

“You think you’ll ever stop talking long enough for us to move past first base?”

“It’s entirely possible,” Dan echos, and then pulls back and up to fit their mouths together again. 

It’s beginning to feel familiar already: the shape of Casey’s mouth, his lips. The way he kisses hard and firm at the start and then goes slack and languid, especially when Dan takes control and sucks on his tongue. 

They make out, still standing by the couch and with all their clothes on, for longer than Dan can ever remember doing this with anyone. By the time they pull away, Dan’s trembling and the perfectly put together casey McCall looks wrecked beyond repair. 

“Bedroom?” Dan chokes out, unable to look away from Casey’s lips: kiss swollen and red. 

“Oh hell yes,” Casey replies, voice just as destroyed.

Dan starts to get nervous again as they reach the open bedroom door, his palm slick within Casey’s grip. 

“Are you—“ Dan begins, throat working. Casey turns on his heel, one eyebrow raised as he pauses in the doorway. 

_Are you sure you want me and all my damage? Are you sure you want to wrap our lives even more around one another?_

He can’t get the words past his lips though. 

Casey raises a hand to Dan’s cheek and leans in, kissing the corner of his mouth. 

“I want you,” Casey whispers against his jaw. “You have no idea how much I want you, Danny.”

Dan sucks in a breath. “Good to, uh, use your words then. In situations such as these.”

“Or other things?” Casey suggests as he presses full up against him again, letting Dan feel the outline of his rather sizable erection. Dan groans and clutches at Casey’s shoulders. 

“Yes, that’s -- good as well. Actions, uh, speak louder and all that -- mmph--” Dan moans into Casey’s mouth as he’s kissed hard and fast, leaving no room for doubt over how much Dan is wanted right now. He feels dizzy with it, has to keep clutching at Casey so he doesn’t do something mortifying like fall over because he’s gone weak in the knees.

Dan doesn’t remember them making it to the bed -- where they are now currently kneeling in the center -- or when he lost his own shirt, but he definitely remembers pulling off Casey’s and staring as though he’s never seen his chest before. 

It’s different in this context. Dan has the right to look, the right to touch, and it’s almost more illicit now. He drags his palms up and down Casey’s abs, feeling the coarse hair under his fingers, exploring flat planes of muscle that are defined just enough. 

Casey kisses him slowly as Dan explores his chest, Casey’s own hands rubbing up and down Dan’s naked back. 

“Maybe we can get off our knees?” Casey whispers. “I’m not as young and spry as you.”

Dan laughs, loving that he can hear pure joy and happiness in Casey’s voice. Dan shifts them so they’re lying down on the bed instead, Casey spread out beneath him. 

Dam groans as their groins make contact. Casey threads his fingers through Dan’s hair and pulls him down, moving slowly beneath him. 

Dan’s moan is broken and embarrassing. He muffles it against Casey’s mouth and kisses him shallowly as they begin to move, finding a rhythm that is as in sync as everything else about them. 

It’s hot and overwhelming and Dan doesn’t even have his pants off. 

Casey’s thigh slips between his own, pushing upward just so, and Dan groans again while biting at Casey’s mouth. 

“God, you feel good,” Casey pants when Dan finally relinquishes claim on his mouth and presses his face into the curve of Casey’s neck. Casey's hands roam over his back like broad strokes of a paint brush. He dips down to the small of Dan’s back before grabbing hold of his ass and squeezing.

Dan whimpers and jerks against him, grinding down against Casey’s thigh. 

“Would you lose all respect for me if I said I kind of just want to make out and rub off against you?”

“Who’s to say I already respect you?” Casey whispers in his ear. 

“Ouch. I’m wounded here. I’m bleeding out.”

“Shut up and c’mere.” Casey pulls Dan up to his mouth again, tongue sliding inside slowly. Dan isn’t sure if his heart will ever _not_ flip when that happens. 

They pick up the pace a little, but Dan is still about to fly out of his skin. When Dan begins working on Casey’s belt, Casey mimics the action. 

“Thought you just wanted to dry hump?” Casey murmurs playfully in Dan’s ear before biting down on the lobe. 

“Naked is always better, my friend.” Dan’s nerves begin acting up again at the thought, though. Casey seeing him naked -- which yes, has happened before. They’ve gotten changed in locker rooms at the gym together before showering. But it still feels different, vulnerable. 

Casey rolls them over and Dan gasps as he’s kissed within an inch of his life and slowly striped of his pants. He helps casey get them off and tugs his own pants off too. Then they’re lying side by side in just their boxers and again this isn’t something strange, except how it totally is. 

Dan searches Casey’s face, so close, as Casey stares back at him. 

“You freaking again?” Casey asks softly as his hand smooths up Dan’s stomach, coming to rest over his heart. 

Dan shakes his head. “I’m just. Still processing all of this.”

Casey nods and keeps up the light touches. When his fingers travel lower, to the waistband of Dan’s boxers, Dan sucks in a breath, abs tightening. 

“Alright?” Casey checks, fingers teasing the elastic. 

“You’re not supposed to be calmer than me. At least I’ve done this before.”

Casey laughs. “Yes, well, I do have a little experience,” he says, hand slipping into his boxers and palming over Dan’s dick on the last word. It leaps against Casey’s hand.

“Is this one of your world class frat handjobs?” 

“Obviously. I patented the moves and everything.” 

Dan laughs, trailing off into a groan as Casey twists his wrist just right. It’s too dry, too tight, yet somehow it’s fucking perfect. Groaning, he buries his face against Casey’s neck. “I mean it, man. I’m really not gonna last long.”

“Yeah?” He can hear Casey’s smirk. “Maybe I _should_ patent it.” 

Dan groans again, for a different reason. “You’re ridiculous. And I’m sorry to say this has less to do with your technique and more to do with the fact that it’s you.” 

Casey’s hand pauses and Dan bites his lip, thinking maybe he’s gone too far. Then Casey’s stroking his back soothingly and Dan relaxes, breathing out against Casey’s neck. “It’s okay. This isn’t a race we’ve set out to win, Danny. We’ve got all night.”

Dan pulls back to look at him. “Okay, who are you and just whose Viagra did you swipe?”

Casey makes a face. “I’m 37, not 73. Give me a little credit.”

Dan considers this. “Soooo, what you’re saying is I’ve got a plethora of sex at my fingertips?”

Casey smirks. “I wouldn’t say a plethora.”

“An abundance?”

“Akin to an abundance.”

Dan smiles. “I’m in the wheelhouse.”

“You’re in the wheelhouse,” Casey agrees, grinning back and moving his hand again. 

“Jesus,” Dan whispers, burying his face in Casey’s neck and shivering at the thought of marathon sex with Casey. 

Casey groans and shoves their boxers down to their knees before pressing in close so their dicks are nudged right up against one another. rocks them together again .

Dan gasps and licks at Casey’s neck, moving to the rhythm.

“We aren’t going to be like Natalie and Jeremy were in the beginning,” Dan says, mouthing at Casey’s collarbone. 

“We won’t,” Casey agrees breathlessly, one hand palming over Dan’s ass. 

“We have to keep it professional,” Dan says, sucking what is probably going to be an impressive hickey onto Casey’s clavicle. He spares a thought for wardrobe and then remembers Casey’s vacation officially began tonight. Which means Dan can mark him up all he wants. _Oh, god_. 

“We will,” Casey replies. Dan had almost forgotten what they were talking about. 

He pulls back to look at Casey, eyebrow raised. “Will we? Because you’ve gotta understand, Casey, I want to have a lot of sex with you, as often as possible.”

Casey smooths one hand down his back. “How about we get through the first time and go from there, huh?”

“Oh my god, stop being so cool and collected!” Dan exclaims, pulling back to look at him. “I need you to freak out with me, Case. I require some solidarity between the sheets.” 

Casey regards him for a moment and Dan feels flayed open. 

“Danny, I’m terrified.” 

Dan blinks. “You’re -- what? You are?”

Casey nods. “I’m terrified. Of fucking this up -- _us up_ , in generaL Of not measuring up in bed to the other men you’ve been with. But, well, someone in this bed needs to not be having an anxiety attack, so I figured it would be me.” 

“Taking one for the team?” 

“That I am.” 

Dan shakes his head with a fond smile. He takes Casey’s face between his hands. “Listen to me: no guy could ever measure up because they _weren’t_ you. You get that? No one ever even came close. And as for the sex… well you're going to have a damn good teacher.” 

“Oh my god, you’re so full of yourself.”

Dan snorts. “I’m not even touching that double entendre.”

“Thank you, it’s much appreciated. Can I make you come now?” 

Dan bites down on his lower lip. “Give it your best shot, baby.”

Casey arches an eyebrow. “I thought we fell on the ‘no endearments’ side of the fence.” 

Dan shrugs one shoulder. “Felt right.” 

“God, just come here.” 

Dan does, rolling back on top of Casey and kissing him like he’s been dying to for fourteen years. Casey groans into his mouth, hands dragging down to his ass to pull Dan even closer. Dan gasps, feeling his orgasm build already. Casey thrusts upward, their dicks sliding perfectly together, legs intertwined as they breathe one another’s air. 

“So close,” Dan whispers, lips on Casey’s jaw. “You feel so fucking good.” 

“You too,” Casey whispers, hands firm on Dan’s ass. It’s surreal, Casey touching him in the most intimate of ways, like they’ve erased any existing barriers between them. It’s that thought that sends Dan over the edge, crying out against Casey’s neck while Casey holds him tight as he shakes. He’s right behind Dan, thankfully, gasping Dan’s name into his skin. 

Dan laughs, unable to help it. Casey joins him, and soon they’re just giggling into one another’s mouths as their hips stutter to a stop, a sticky mess between them. 

“That was stupidly good,” Casey sighs between kisses. “I’m not even going to chortle.” 

“Mmm, damn right you’re not. And it only gets better,” Dan says lazily. 

Casey groans and rolls them onto their sides, kissing Dan again, harder this time. Dan gasps and kisses back, fingers tight around Casey’s back. 

They roll around the hotel room’s California King like a couple of teenagers, pinning one another to the mattress and drinking their fill, not even caring about the come drying on their stomachs. 

“I’m really not done with you yet,” says Casey breathlessly from his position draped over Dan. 

Dan’s entire body is singing, his lips are raw, and he’s covered in sweat. “Good,” he replies, meeting Casey’s dark eyes. ”Because I’m really not ready for you to be done with me.”

“Can I blow you?” 

Dan’s eyes widen. “Uh. Yes?” 

The corner of Casey’s mouth twitches. “Is that a question?” 

“No. I mean, fuck, yes, if you want to.” 

Casey rolls his eyes. “I wouldn’t have offered if I didn’t want to, Danny.” 

Before Dan can answer, Casey is sliding down his body, lips hot on his throat, his chest, his nipples. Dan gasps when Casey latches onto one, swirling his tongue around it before moving to the other. He closes his eyes, head tilted back as he drags his fingers through Casey’s soft hair, scratching along his scalp. Casey begins to move, kissing a line down the center of Dan’s chest and stopping just over his torso. Dan’s dick is half hard, laying heavy against his thigh. When Casey touches him, it all but leaps into his hand. 

Dan has to look down, has to see Casey’s long lashes and pink cheeks as he bends his head to lick at the length of Dan’s cock. 

“Casey…” he murmurs, hands in his hair again, soothing. 

Casey doesn’t stop, keeps licking up and down the underside of Dan’ dick in a slow, torturous tease until Dan is fully hard and standing to attention. His eyes never leave Casey’s as Casey grips him at the base and finally, finally closes his lips over the head and sucks. 

It’s the most inexpert blowjob he’s received since high school, yet it’s somehow also the best thing to ever happen to him. Casey is sloppy and enthusiastic. He takes as much in his mouth as he can, and does the rest by hand. He plays with Dan’s balls and buries his face in Dan’s pubic hair. Casey is dirty and hot and Dan has no idea how this is actually happening to him. He keeps a firm hold on Casey’s hair but never pushes. Casey moans around his mouthful, the vibration and sounds bringing Dan even closer. When he’s about to come, he warns Casey off. 

Casey doesn’t go far, just pulls off enough for Dan to come mostly over his fist and on his chin. 

“Casey, oh holy shit, you…” Dan can barely breathe at the sight of Casey: hair matted to his forehead, lips full and red, and Dan’s come gracing his chin and jaw. Dan’s dick gives a painful twitch. “Come the fuck up here,” Dan growls. 

Casey does, whimpering as Dan licks him clean and then kisses him deep, sharing the taste. It’s the sexiest sound he’s ever heard. Dan flips Casey over onto his back and slides down his body, determined to hear that sound some more.  
__________________________

Dan doesn’t remember falling asleep. He remembers Casey crying out his name and fucking into Dan’s mouth just the way Dan asked of him. He remembers Casey coming in his mouth and taste of Casey on his tongue. He remembers them kissing again, messy and sweaty before finally, finally cleaning up. 

Dan doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he remembers waking up. Casey’s LED alarm clock tells him it’s only 4 a.m. His nose is mashed into Casey’s chest, Casey’s arms strong around his waist and their legs slotted together. 

Dan shifts, kissing Casey’s chest, licking his nipple. Casey groans, one hand strong as it moves up and down Dan’s spine. 

“It is in no way, shape, or form morning,” Casey grumbles. 

“I want you to fuck me,” replies Dan. 

Casey’s hand stops moving. “Uh. Wow. You sure know how to get a fella’s attention at 4:06 a.m.” 

Dan drags his tongue up Casey’s sternum. “I’ve got hidden depths.” 

“You certainly do.” 

Dan glanes up, trying to meet Casey’s eyes in the darkness. “So is that a yes?” 

He watches Casey’s tongue drag over his bottom lip. “Yes. Definitely, yes.” 

Dan grins and jumps out of bed, nearly tripping on the sheet.

“What on earth are you doing?” asks Casey, words dripping with amusement. 

“Condoms!” Dan exclaims as he searches through his suitcase. 

“You brought condoms with you?” 

“I am nothing if not prepared.” Dan holds up his triumphant find, along with a tube of lube.

Casey laughs. “That you are.” His gaze travels over Dan’s still naked body and Dan shivers. 

Dan crawls back onto the bed, dumping the items near Casey’s hip. He climbs on top of Casey, fits their bodies together. He’s only been doing this for a few hours but he’s already obsessed. 

Dan doesn’t even care that Casey’s mouth is a little rank and Casey seems fine with it right back. They kiss deep and slow, Dan arranging himself so he’s seated in Casey’s lap. Casey’s dick growing hard from where it’s nudged up against Dan’s ass. 

Casey gasps as Dan rocks backward, causing Casey to slide between his cheeks. 

“You like that?” 

“Yes,” Casey gets out. 

“You ever done this? I mean -- with a woman?” 

Casey shakes his head, sliding along Dan’s jaw. “No.” 

Dan trembles. “You’re going to love it.” 

Casey groans and rocks upward while fisting his fingers in Dan’s hair and kissing him hard. 

“How do you want to do this?” Dan asks after a stupidly long make-out session.

Casey slides his dick along Dan’s crack. “Like this seems real nice.” 

Dan smiles, kisses Casey’s forehead. “Okay.” Dan reaches for the lube, holds it up. “You wanna do the honors or should I?” 

Casey’s eyes are wide in the darkness, his lips parted. “Uhh. Can you this time? I wanna… watch you.” 

“Kinky,” Dan grins. He’s more than happy to oblige, though. Dan goes slowly, kneeling over Casey and fingering himself open, first with one finger then two. Casey’s gaze is rapt and Dan feels hot all over. 

“Oh, wow. Yeah, just like that. God, you’re fucking beautiful.” 

Casey’s awkward dirty talk is blindingly hot. He lets Casey urge him on, working himself open on his fingers until he feels ready. Together they roll the condom onto Casey’s cock, velvety smooth and hard as a rock. 

Dan leans in, kisses Casey slow and dirty, tugging on his lower lip. “You ready?” he whispers. 

“More than,” Casey whispers back. 

Dan shakes as he grips the base of Caey’s dick and positions himself over his thighs, lowering himself slowly. The first feel of Casey inside him is overwhelming. It’s _Casey_. And sure, it’s been a while since Dan has done this, but he doesn’t even feel the pain. He’s too wrapped up in the knowledge that he’s sinking down on Casey McCall’s dick. Casey’s breathing hard, chest rising and falling under the hand Dan’s placed over his heart. 

“Oh, god,” Casey moans as he slides deeper. 

“Casey,” Dan murmurs, sinking down lower until Casey’s bottomed out, his balls flush against Dan’s cheeks. 

Casey’s fingers grip Dan’s hip, nails biting into his skin. “Oh my god, Danny.” 

Dan keeps one hand braced on Casey’s chest and wraps the other around his neck. He leans in close, brushing their mouths together. “Gonna move now,” Dan chokes out. 

Casey nods into the kiss, tightening his grip even more. And then Dan’s moving, rocking his hips in slow circles, barely giving Casey an inch. Casey groans louder, tries to get Dan to move more. Dan smiles against his mouth and does, lifting up just so before dropping down again. 

Casey cries out against his mouth as Dan begins to ride him, and then they’re off and running, finding a rhythm that’s a perfect mix of slow and frantic. Their mouths never leave one another’s as they fuck. Dan’s dick is hard between their stomachs and Casey reaches down at one point to jerk him, slow and steady. Dan breaks the seal of their mouths then, gasping into the damp skin of Casey’s neck. 

“God, fuck me. Fuck me, Casey.” Dan shivers in Casey’s arms as he slams down onto him, body lit up from the inside out. 

“Jesus Christ, Danny,” Casey whispers. Then he’s flipping them over in a move that is way too smooth for someone as uncool as Casey. They manage to stay connected in the transition and Dan makes a mental note to ask Casey just what porn he watched. 

Now, though, he’s far too focused on Casey’s cock slamming into him, hitting his prostate on every thrust as he fucks Dan into the mattress with purpose. Dan wraps one leg around Casey’s waist, urging him on. Casey’s mouth is wet and hot against his neck, his upper arm. Dan’s so close and reaches between them to palm his dick. 

It only takes a few teasing strokes before he’s coming, clenching up around Casey and moaning his name over and over. 

“Danny, my god,” Casey gasps, fucking into him jerkily before coming himself. “Oh, fuck yes.” 

Dan smiles weakly, stroking one hand through Casey’s hair and down his back. “You...are a fast learner.” Dan manages, lungs heaving. 

“I suppose I have a good teacher,” Casey allows and Dan cracks up. He isn’t sure he’s ever laughed this much in bed and course it would be different with Casey, like this with Casey. 

Casey pulls out slowly, tosses the condom. Then Dan’s back in Casey’s arms.

“I can hear you thinking,” Dan murmurs after a few minutes, lips rubbing against Casey’s nipple. 

“We’re supposed to take Charlie out tomorrow. Well. Today. In like, seven hours.”

Dan freezes. “Um, yeah. That still okay?” 

“Yeah,” Casey says after a moment. “I just...I think I’d like to tell him and not wait or anything. If you’re okay with that.” 

Dan exhales quietly. 

“I’m absolutely okay with that, Casey.” He kisses Casey’s skin, lets his smile be felt. 

Casey’s hand strokes slowly through his hair. “Good. Because I’m sure about this and I don’t feel like hiding it from my son.” 

Dan’s smile widens. Calm euphoria washes over him as they lie together in the dark of the room, lights peeking through the mostly drawn curtains from the city Dan loves, that he gets to call home again. Dan thinks, perhaps, that this is what happiness feels like. 

He thinks about Sam, thinks about college and first meeting Casey. He never in a million years would have thought he’d get here. That he’d be able to live without guilt crushing him day in and day out. Never thought he’d be able to accept the idea that he deserves to be happy, to be loved. He’s ready to try out that novel concept. 

Dan is thirty-three years old, significantly less of a fuckup than he used to be, and head over heels in love with Casey McCall. 

The latter part isn’t new knowledge for Dan. Knowing that Casey McCall loves him back, though? That’s one for the books.

A happily ever after, he supposes, just might be in the cards after all. 

[end]

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s [Dan's mix to Casey](https://8tracks.com/sometimesalways/heard-your-voice-in-between-the-lines) as referenced in Chapter 3.
> 
> Maybe one day I’ll make Casey’s ultimate cheesy mix. 
> 
> Thank you for reading and comments are love. <3


End file.
